Salvation
by cah11
Summary: Harry has defeated Lord Voldemort, but all is not as it seems. Betrayal, dark ambition, and schemes that Harry wants no part of force Harry to flee to France, where he may meet the one person who can save him from his problems in England, and himself.
1. An Ending and a Beginning

**Disclaimer: I am not JKR, I am not even female. The characters and canon events do not belong to me, some non-canon events also do not belong to me, but to other fan fic authors, as there are several things I have probably stolen from other stories (consciously or unconsciously) so to those authors who recognize elements from their stories this is not a blatant attempt to steal from you, but an acknowledgement of your great writing, which I use to try to make mine better.**

**P.S.-sorry for the long disclaimer but I wanted to cover all angles.**

**Note: Some canon events have been changed to fit the storyline, which takes place after "The Half Blood Prince." The list is.**

**Dumbledore is still alive.**

**All the horcruxes have been destroyed by Harry and Dumbledore.**

**The Death Eaters did not break into Hogwarts at the end of HBP, and Draco was executed by Voldemort as a result.**

**Fleur is not dating Bill they found there were too many differences to make it work.**

Cah11 humbly presents:

**Salvation**

**Chapter 1: An Ending, and A Beginning**

It was over. It was finally over.

Lord Voldemort laid dead, along with 150 minor Death Eaters, and the entirety of his Inner Circle.

Harry Potter just stood there for a moment, letting the knowledge sweep through him that Tom Riddle, The Dark Lord, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, Lord Voldemort; however you wanted to refer to him as, was dead.

The minor Death Eaters had been no problem for Harry to dispatch, they were grunts, cannon fodder, used against the Aurors, and the Order to drain them of their strength before the Inner Circle joined the battle for the killing blow. Harry had dropped every single one of them with an ancient stunning spell variant he had found one day in the library's restricted section.

The spell was called _levitaschain_ or Chain Lightning. It was spells that caused all the targets muscles to spasm and go out of control, and then left them paralyzed on the floor, much like a muggle stun gun. The big difference is that when the spell hit its target it automatically split and targeted all warm bodies within a ten yard radius of the original target, thus the chain effect.

_**Begin Flashback**_

Voldemort's plan had doomed that portion of his defense, as he had ordered his Death Eaters to challenge Harry in the antechamber of his thrown room, thinking that this would give his minions a chance to kill the boy, after all 150 Death Eaters, against one 16 year old boy in a 100 x 200 yard room, all they had to do was fill the boys end of the room with killing curses and that was that. Unfortunately the small size of the room kept all the Death Eaters in close proximity to one another, and so the spell Harry had fired had incapacitated every one of them before any of them could even begin the fatal curse.

After that Harry had focused his power on the Thrown Room door, and with a yelled _Reducto_ the door had blown in, causing several pieces of shrapnel to injure Malfoy Sr., Redulfus Lestraunge, and Peter Pettigrew. Voldemort himself had been in the line of fire, but had managed to shield himself at the last minute.

"How nice of you to join us Potter." Voldemort had sneered "What took you so long in defeating my fodder, surely even a half blood like yourself could handle weaklings like them in less time then the 5 minutes it took you."

"Lord Voldemort, I Harry James Potter hereby challenge you to a duel to settle a blood feud between House Potter, and House Riddle, do you accept"

Harry's challenge had been in little more than a whisper, but everyone in the room had heard him all the same. There was something in that voice that unnerved them, even Bellatrix had looked uneasy for a moment before hitching the smirk back on her face and, cackling madly said, "What do you mean blood feud, you are not the head of your House, your magical guardian Dumby is in control of your family rights until you reach your majority."

"Normally, that would be true Bellatrix." Voldemort answered, "But if I am thinking right, the boy somehow managed to convince Dumbledore to allow him to be emancipated, am I right boy?"

"You are." Harry answered, "And I say again how do you answer my challenge? Affirmative, we duel to the death, with the spoils of the dead going to the victor. Negative, you are stripped of your magic, holdings, properties, and titles, which would all transfer to me."

"Foolish boy you actually think you can out duel me, Lord Voldemort, the most powerful wizard in modern history? You shall have your duel, and you shall die under my wand, begging for mercy."

"How do you want to do this Tom?" Harry asked, "Wands only, wands and swords, all weapons allowed?"

"Tell you what Potter, I am feeling especially good today because I'm about to kill you, I'll let you use any weapon you want while I just use my wand."

"Do you swear a wizard's oath to only use your wand Tom? I can't have you reneging on a promise like that in the middle of the fight if I start to win."

Voldemort scowled, he had hoped that the boy would not make him swear to a magically binding contract to only use his wand, But no matter, he still had nearly 60 years of experience on the boy, no matter what weapon he used he would probably not be proficient with it to a degree that would endanger his life.

"Very well Potter, I promise on my life, and my magic that I shall only use my wand in the duel against Harry James Potter, and no other weapons, so mote be it."

"So mote be it."

There was a flash of light that connected Voldemort to Harry for a few seconds, then it disappeared, and instantly the two combatants drew their wands. The Inner Circle arranged themselves around Harry and Voldemort in an oval and then stood very still to watch the duel, there was little doubt in any of their minds that Voldemort would win, and after all he was The Dark Lord.

Both combatants bowed slightly to their opponent neither taking their eyes from the other, before pausing for an instant, waiting to see who would strike first, a lot could be gleaned about a person based on their opening spells. Voldemort fired first, _Crucio_ Harry dodged the torture curse and cast an _Incarcerous_. Voldemort banished the conjured ropes and then transfigured several pieces of wood on the floor into several small steel daggers. Waving his wand he banished the daggers at Harry who ducked behind a marble column wincing as he heard the daggers bury themselves to the hilt in the thick rock. Stepping out again Harry began to cast _Reducto, protego, incarcerous, sectumsempra, Cupiditas Incendia_, all in a sequence that lasted no more that 6 seconds. Five of the spells flew toward Voldemort, while the sixth created an invisible shield around Harry to protect him while he readied the last phase of his mad scheme. Voldemort had been surprised when Harry displayed knowledge of the sequence known as "the tester." The sequence was known thus because each spell (minus the protego) was a slightly different offensive spell in nature, therefore needed a slightly different magical shield signature to block it, much like a plant needed several different pigments on its leaves to absorb different wavelengths of light. Thus the spell "tested" the mages ability to change the resonance of his shield to block the five slightly different curses. He shielded the reductor curse, and banished the ropes again, he shielded the cutting curse, and attempted to dodge the fire charm but it hit him on the shoulder, which erupted into flame. Cursing Voldemort said "_aquamente"_ expecting the fire to go out instead the bright green flames sizzled and began to burn more furiously, causing Voldemort to howl with pain. Quickly reaching up he grasped the outer robe and threw it off watching in stunned amazement as the garment, which had many protective spells on it, was engulfed in green flames. Racking his brain, Voldemort tried to recall the name of a spell that conjured green flames. At first he couldn't remember the spell, and when he did he went paler than usual, only one spell in all of recorded history had produced unquenchable green flame. Cupiditas Incendia or _Greek Fire._ The spell had been lost to time during the Dark Ages, or so everyone thought. Apparently Potter had found the incantation somewhere, and could actually use it. Hearing two clicks, Voldemort spun round to see the boy holding two objects in his hands. Both were small, black, and had a hole in the end that was pointing at him.

Voldemort laughed "What is this Potter, a practical joke, I know your father was a Marauder before I ended his pathetic existence, but even he managed to stay serious during a fight."

"Well," Harry said, "Maybe he should have joked around then too, if he had maybe then he would have survived." Then he pulled both triggers.

The handguns bucked in his hands firing two 10 millimeter bullets traveling at just over the speed of sound toward Voldemort, who was so surprised when he felt two searing pains in his chest that he did not even think to shield himself against the next two incoming projectiles that impacted his left thigh, and right below his left lung. The next two shots brought Voldemort to the floor, due to the bullets lodging themselves in his stomach, and his right kneecap. Voldemort began to feel his powers wane as his magic tried to close the small puncture wounds in his chest and legs, but the bullets had been enchanted by Harry with a magic repelling spell. It was a spell that after it was cast, made the object impossible to spell, or be affected by ambient magic. As Voldemort's magic drained, trying to replace blood lost out the 6 puncture wounds, he heard as if from far away several more gun shots and bodies hitting the floor, and each time a shot was heard, his power decrease, and he came to realize that the Potter boy was now killing off his Inner Circle, as he leached each member of a small portion of their power, and that power was disappearing.

The last thing Voldemort ever saw was the Potter boy coming over and leaning over his dying body and saying "Are you ready for the next great adventure Tom?"

Voldemort smiled "Foolish boy, I will live on, you do not even know how but I will continue to exist."

"Ah, I believe you are referring to your horcruxes Tom, Yes I know of them," Harry said smiling at Voldemort's look of horror, "don't worry Tom I've already disposed of them all, I'm sure some poor sap will take pity on your soul and try to redeem you, my personal opinion, you can burn in Hell." Then Harry pressed the pistol to Voldemort's head and pulled the trigger. With a loud report, Voldemort's head disappeared in a fine red mist and the headless body finally lay still.

_**End Flashback.**_

Harry stood there over Voldemort's headless body and thought about all the changes this would lead to. The prophesy was fulfilled now and Harry could have a life, a family, and a real career. Harry thought about the future he could now have with Ginny, the kids they could now raise in safety, and the fact that now they could actually go out in public without having to constantly be looking over their shoulders for Death Eaters or other maniacs trying to kill them when their backs were turned. Harry could finally go back to the people he loved, hold his head high and say to them truthfully, "We can live again, there's no reason to be afraid anymore."

Suddenly there were several loud POPs behind him. Spinning on the spot and bringing the pistols up to bear, in case it was more Death Eaters apperating in to try to aid their dead master. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw it was only Dumbledore and three members of the order of the phoenix. Dumbledore took one look around, spotted Harry and turned red, this was not part of the plan, the boy was supposed to last long enough to weaken Voldemort, and then die without a fuss, then Dumbledore could 'single handedly' overwhelm Voldemort and regain the kind of fame he had after his victory over Grindelwald. Fame that he had been wielding before the spot light was stolen by the boy with his "defeat" of the Dark Lord Voldemort. Now he comes here expecting to have a relatively easy duel with Voldemort, instead he arrives to see "The Boy Who Lived" standing victorious over Voldemort's headless body. This would not do, he needed to alter the situation, permanently. It was a good thing he had prepared Alastor, Mundungus, and Nymphadora for this eventuality, as unlikely as it had seemed to him that Harry would actually live.

"Professor, it is done, Voldemort is dead. We can…"

Dumbledore brought his hand up, pointed at Harry and shouted "Mundungus, Alastor, Nymphadora, attack and capture Harry at all costs."

Immediately the three wizards at his side pulled wands out and rushed at Harry firing spells as they ran. Harry, not expecting this, barely managed to shield himself from the variety of spells while yelling. "Guys, what are you doing, we're on the same side."

"Wrong Potter," Mundungus shouted "You wouldn't let me have the Black house artifacts, you didn't value them yourself. They just sat in that house and gathered dust. I could have found them new owners, and made a little money for myself. What harm could it have done, instead you insisted on being noble, and letting all that valuable treasure sit in the house and rot. Well no more, after your dead, Dumbledore will allow me to get at those beauties, and then I will be rich enough to never have to work again."

"You Alastor," Harry asked with a betrayed look.

"Harry," Mad-Eye grunted. "You must understand, a person should wield only so much power. Once that threshold has been broken, the person will eventually be corrupted by his power and will turn evil, like Voldemort. I am simply trying to do what is best for the world in general and head off the next Dark Lord before he can be realized."

"Tonks?" Harry asked in a hurt voice.

With tears in her eyes Tonks replied. "I'm sorry Harry, but I agree with Mad-Eye, I've seen it too many times before. The person gains so much power and at first their motivations are pure and they use their power for good, but after a while the means begins to justify the ends, and they turn Dark. This is for your own good, wouldn't you rather die now, with the knowledge that you prevented the rise of a new Dark Lord, rather than **become** that Dark Lord."

"No Tonks." Harry whispered, "I wouldn't. I didn't go through hell and back for 16 years only to die now before I have truly lived, I'm sorry about this but…" and faster than any of them could react he cast for the second time that night "_levitaschain._"

The spell hit Alastor first, as he was in the middle then chained to Tonks, and Mundungus, all of whom fell over and past out.

"Harry!" Dumbledore shouted, "Stop, if you surrender to me now I will make your death painless, even humane, all you would have to do is overdose on the draft of living death, a peaceful slip into oblivion, that's all."

"I know what you have done Dumbledore," Harry said coldly "you have brainwashed my friends against me, you tested me with the crystal of ambition and there is no dark ambition in my soul. If we were to test you right now, no doubt it would tell a very different story. I will come back and expose you for the traitor you are, and then I will dispose of you."

"Harry this is exactly the thing Alastor, and Nymphadora were trying to warn you about. You are already talking of killing me, your own teacher, who else would you be willing to kill if you could stoop that low? Hermione? Ron? Ginny?"

Dumbledore's insinuations that Harry would inflict pain on his friends had brought his fury to the boiling point, but at the casual suggestion of Harry even touching Ginny in a way that would harm her set Harry off like a cannon. Harry's pistols were in his hands and he was standing in front of Dumbledore so fast that the Headmaster did not even have time to blink.

"If you think that I would harm even a hair on Ginny's head then you are clearly bonkers." Harry yelled "I will not kill you because as you said that would drive me down the path to darkness and it is not a path I wish to follow, however…"

And taking careful aim Harry shot Dumbledore in both kneecaps, shattering them to pieces.

As the Headmaster fell to the floor with a scream Harry said, "This is retribution for past sins you have committed against me and for the smear campaign against me you will no doubt start tomorrow in the Daily Prophet. And don't try fixing you knees with magic, it won't work, you'll have to get them repaired the muggle way."

Dumbledore paled as he thought about how painful the next 6 months were going to be for him, as he watched Harry disapperate. He knew the "muggle" way included many reconstructive surgeries, casts, and not being able to walk for a significant amount of time. He hoped this wouldn't affect his performance as headmaster, or his image as the returning savior of the wizarding world.

**I decided to write a long fight scene between Voldemort and Harry because I thought that the way JKR ended the HP series was pretty crappy, I mean I personally was expecting some epic duel between Harry and Voldemort and instead all we get is a bunch of talking and then Voldemort essentially committing accidental suicide. Bunch of bull-s***.**

**Please review this story, constructive criticism is welcome, but if you're going to write a review just to complain, let me ask you a question, if you didn't like the story, why did you even read it? Please also remember that this is my first fan-fic, and is probably unbetaed, so constructive criticism is welcome, complaining is not.**

**(Post published Authors Note: I finally have a beta! I want to thank potterfanchuck for looking over this chapter. He will be reviewing all my previous chapters and new chapters for spelling and grammatical errors as I suck at grammar.)**

**Until next time.**

**Cah11.**


	2. Asylum

**First I want to say, thank you to all those who reviewed chapter one, I was not sure if my first attempt at a fic would pan out or not, but from the number of positive reviews, I did something right. =]**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the Harry Potter universe that would be JKR, I am not female, nor am I British.**

**Recap of last paragraph**

_And taking careful aim Harry shot Dumbledore in both kneecaps, shattering them to pieces._

_As the Headmaster fell to the floor with a scream Harry said, "This is retribution for past sins you have committed against me and for the smear campaign against me you will no doubt start tomorrow in the Daily Prophet. And don't try fixing you knees with magic, it won't work, you'll have to get them repaired the muggle way."_

_Dumbledore paled as he thought about how painful the next 6 months were going to be for him, as he watched Harry disapparated. He knew the "muggle" way included many reconstructive surgeries, and casts and not being able to walk for a significant amount of time. He hoped this wouldn't affect his performance as headmaster, or his image as the returning savior of the wizarding world._

**Now**

**Cah11 humbly presents**

**Salvation**

**Chapter 2: Asylum**

Harry disapparated to Grimmauld Place first to retrieve his few worldly possessions, his clothes inherited from Dudley, his robes, his invisibility cloak, the Marauders Map, and his snowy owl Hedwig. He packed everything (except Hedwig) into his trunk and then opening Hedwig's cage Harry told her,

"Hedwig, I need you to fly away and hide do you understand that? I need you to fly north to your native lands to blend in and wait for me to come back, can you do that?"

Hedwig looked at him sadly, hooted, and then hopped onto Harry's shoulder and pressed her cheek against his. Looking up at her with tear filled eyes Harry explained.

"Dumbledore betrayed me and I need to escape the country, no matter where I go I will look suspiciously like me if I have a snowy owl on my shoulder. I wish there could be another way, but I see no other alternative. You will have to stay here and wait for me to come back."

Hedwig saw the logic in his argument and reluctantly agreed giving him one last affectionate nip on the finger, Hedwig flew out the window and soon vanished from sight. Sighing in a depressed way Harry grabbed his trunk and lugged it downstairs to the apparation point. Taking one last look around he sighed, he did not want to go through with this, but there was no other way that he saw.

He could have sought refuge with many people, the Weasleys, Lovegoods, the Grangers, but they all lacked two things. One, they were not out of country; Harry knew he would have to leave Britain before he was away from Dumbledore's influence, so anyone living in country was out. Two they were not well politically connected, Harry knew if he was to escape Dumbledore completely the family he stayed with would need political immunity. That left two possibilities, The Krums, and the Delacours, of the two, Harry was better friends with Fleur, having had time to talk with her at Hogwarts after the Third Task before she left to go back home to France. Whereas he was not on nearly as good terms with Krum, sure they had talked some, but their relationship had been more respecting rivals then friends when he had gone home to Bulgaria. And another thing was that Fleur's father was a high ranking politician, although that was not the main reason Harry was going to the Delacours first, it was certainly a factor in his final decision.

Because Harry didn't know where Fleur lived in France he decided to try apparating to major cities in France to try to find their home. Although he was not expecting a mansion, he knew that the Delacours were an old, rich family; they would most likely live in an ancestral home near one of the larger cities in France. Deciding to apparate to Paris first, Harry closed his eyes, focused on his destination and then turned into the blackness of apparation.

Opening his eyes after reappearing he oriented himself on a mental map he had memorized quickly at Grimmauld Place and began to move toward a deserted alley. Once there he quickly changed out of his battle robes and into muggle clothing and then walked toward the muggle hotel across the street. He figured he better stay in a muggle establishment until he made contact with the Delacours, he didn't want Dumbledore to find him before he was ready to face him again. Entering the lobby of the cheep hotel, Harry quickly booked a room for a week, he didn't know how long he would have to search before he found the Delacours, and then went up to his room.

Once there he set down his trunk and then lay down on the bed. He thought of Ginny, what would she say when she found out Harry was missing, would she attempt to find him? Would she be prevented by her mother, who believed anything Dumbledore or the Prophet said? Or would she believe the lies herself, and be turned against him by that backstabbing bastard. Deciding to fall asleep for a bit he undressed and put on a pair of overly large shorts (they used to belong to Dudley), and then got under the covers. Due to the fact that he hadn't slept in nearly 36 hours, and because of the amount of magic he had expended in that time, Harry fell asleep quickly.

When Harry awoke again it was nearly 8:00 PM in Paris, he had gone to bed at around 3:00 AM the night before, and though still slightly tired, he would make do. Realizing he was very hungry he decided to go out to get something to eat.

After walking around for a half an hour evaluating all his choices, he chose a restaurant/club to eat at. Walking in he sat down at a table and a waiter came up.

"Good evening monsieur, what will you have tonight?"

The waiter grimaced when Harry asked for a steak that was well done, "Of coarse monsieur, would you like anything else?" 'Damn British people, always ruining steaks by over cooking them.'

"No, thank you that will be all."

"Very good monsieur." Then the waiter walked away.

Harry hadn't really had the time to think yet, but sitting there in his booth he leaned back, closed his eyes, and began to sort through the events of the day, cataloguing them in his brain with help from his recent occlumncy training. 'So' Harry thought 'Dumbledore wants to rule wizarding Britain, and thinks that I am a threat to his rule, I don't see why, he can have Britain for all I care, I don't owe the wizards or the muggles of that country anything.'

It was true; Harry had spent 10 years of his life waiting hand and foot on the Dursleys after his parents were killed. Dudley and his gang had always made sure that Harry was friendless by roughing up boys or girls that attempted to even approach Harry, let alone try to extend a hand in friendship.

The kids at school learned quickly to avoid Harry at all cost, even going so far as to swerve away from him in the halls to make sure they didn't cross the imaginary circle Dudley had drawn around his cousin.

Even in his neighborhood Harry didn't have friends, his aunt and uncle had warned the neighbors that Harry was a troubled boy who had a problem with shoplifting, random fits of violence, and was mentally unstable. As such the neighborhood parents taught their children to avoid Harry like he was a disease.

It didn't get much better in the wizarding world where he had been quite unprepared for the amount of fame that was to be sprung on him. At first everyone loved him and he thought he could be happy here, however he quickly realized that fame does not guarantee you friends.

His second year the student body had circulated rumors, unfounded accusations that he was the heir of Slytherin, all because he was a parslemouth. Almost everyone had believed the rumors even his best friend Ron had had suspicions although he had never voiced them aloud.

His third year had been spent in anger and dread as he learned of Sirius escaping, heard the tail of his godfather's betrayal, and swore his revenge. On top of that he had to deal with his weakness to dementors, whose terrifying abilities always caused him to pass out. Only toward the end of the year did Harry learn the truth, that Sirius was innocent, and that Peter Pettigrew was still alive, and was the one who betrayed James and Lily.

His forth year had stressed him to the limit during his time as an unwilling Triwizard Champion. Nearly everyone, including Ron, had believed that Harry had entered himself into the competition, convinced he wanted more fame, and glory. They had eventually come round, but Harry no longer viewed the wizarding world the same way he did back in his first year.

Then, of course, there was the rebirth of Lord Voldemort; this had terrified Harry more than any other event in his life. Harry thought it was just typical that in a world of magic, a wraith could, if he was 'powerful enough', resurrect himself.

His fifth year had been a disaster between Umbitch and the Department of Mysteries, fiasco which led to Sirius's death Harry was amazed he had made it through that year with his sanity intact.

The wizarding world was no longer a happy, magical place; instead Harry viewed it as an extension of the muggle world, corrupt politicians, scheming dark lords, even bullies like Malfoy were still a constant in this world. Harry had often entertained the idea of leaving the magical world and moving away from Britain, just to escape the unwanted, (and in his opinion) undeserved fame. The only thing that had kept him in this world after Sirius died two years previously was his love for Ginny, and he didn't know if he even still had that. But, one thing at a time, first he had to find a safe place to lie low for awhile, and that meant finding Fleur.

As Harry waited for his meal, three hooded and cloaked figures sat across the street watching him. Speaking in French, one of the figures asked the second figure in a decidedly female voice, "Are you sure it is him?"

"Yes." the second female sounding figure hissed "Do you think I wouldn't know The Boy Who Lived if I saw him, he is only one of most famous wizards of the modern day."

"I just wanted to make sure." The first female said defensively. "After all, if we screw this up we could end up worse off than we were before either because we bonded with the wrong wizard or because we got caught and end up not gaining any status but losing some."

"It's alright to be suspicious Laret." The third female said, "But if we are going to take this chance, we must act now, while he is distracted, and in one place, not moving around."

"Right." The other two replied.

Getting up, the three females moved across the street, and entered the restaurant/club. Moving over toward where Harry was sitting, they sat down in a booth next to his, and after applying some glamour charms to their hair and face, they lowered their hoods. A waiter came over and spoke rapidly in French. Placing their order in curt voices the three glamoured female veela waited for the waiter to move away, then wordlessly cast a muggle repelling charm around their booth. After this they began to allow subtle amounts of the allure out, not enough to enthrall Harry but enough to get his attention, and curiosity.

Harry's steak had just arrived, and he had begun to eat it when the three women in the booth next to him caught his eye, looking over to evaluate them, he noticed that they were very attractive.

'Man those three look good. Did I really just think that? What the hell, pull yourself together mate, you love Ginny, GINNY, no one else, even if they are very attractive.'

The three veela at the next table smirked as they saw Harry's battling emotions. This might be easier than they thought if he reacted this strongly to the allure at only one-eighth power. Laret, and the other two, Marisa, and Zoe were not the most powerful veela, not by far; they were only half blooded, a pure blooded mother, and wizard father. As such their allure was relatively weak compared to the other veelas, and virtually non-existent when compared to their mothers allure.

This of course was why they were here trying to enthrall Harry Potter France wasn't nearly as bad as Britain about supposed "dark creature" laws, but veela were still distrusted in wizarding society because of their special abilities. Still it was better than in Britain were a veela could be imperioused, and bonded to the first wizard who discovered their identity. The three veela thought that if they could bond to a famous enough wizard and get pregnant by them, they could raise their social standing and be considered equals in France, for once a veela is bonded their allure only works on the bonded male, or other females the male might bond with.

After eating for half an hour and guiltily sneaking glances at the three women in the booth next to his, Harry finally finished, and stood up. At the same time the three women stood up, and two walked out. The third began to walk toward Harry, and as she did so Harry noticed how attractive she really was. Her brown hair was half way down her back, she had a pretty face, was at least a C-cup, and had nicely developed hips, which swayed slightly as she walked.

As Zoe moved closer to Harry she began to crank up the allure until it was at half power, then walking up to him she said without any accent at all, "Hello monsieur."

"Uhhh hello." Harry eloquently answered.

"I noticed you looking at me and my friends and wondered if you wanted to dance with me, you know, get better acquainted." Zoe said, tossing her hair back from her face. Harry thought her face was interesting and slightly captivating.

"Ummm, I don't know, I'm not from around here, and I'm not really someone you want to get involved with."

"Nonsense," The women said firmly. "you are here alone, and no man as hansom as you should be alone. What do you say to a few dances?"

By now Harry was so enthralled by the beauty of her face that he would have agreed to anything she said.

"Ok" Harry said and taking her gesturing hand led her out on to the dance floor.

Harry didn't really have any dancing experience, unless you counted the two or three times Harry danced with Parvarti at the Yule Ball. But he really wanted to impress this beautiful woman, so he gave it his best shot and hoped it was enough, trying to dance in time with the fast beat of the music. Harry noticed the woman was a very good dancer, being seductive, without being indecent, and although she was out performing him all the way, Harry thought he was at least managing well enough for her judging by the seductive smile on her face.

Zoe noted that although he lacked skill at dancing, she thought that it was more from lack of experience than because he was bad at it. Besides it wasn't really his dancing skills she was assessing, but his physique, and the grace of his movements. After all if you are to be bonded to someone for the rest of your life, you want to make sure they have something going for them besides fame and riches, although those two things do help. After a few dances Zoe thought that he was worthy of her and her two friends. His body was nicely toned from a strict workout regiment Harry had been following all school year, and from the quidditch. His movements, though uncertain due to lack of experience, were smooth and flowed together in one continuous movement. Above all, Zoe could sense the huge amount of raw magical power within the young man. Here was someone who if attacked, if insulted, if blasphemed, could defend herself, himself, and her friends.

After a few songs, Zoe led Harry off the dance floor and whispered in his ear, "I have a couple of friends that I want you to meet, and I was wondering if you wanted to come back to my place, you know to get better acquainted; you won't regret you came."

As she said this, she cranked the power level of her allure up to full power, completely enthralling the young Harry, who said

"Uhhh, ok that's fine with me."

Grabbing his hand the women suddenly turned on the spot and both she and Harry disappeared with a small pop.

They reappeared in the woods near her home, which was located in a veela community near Paris. Veela communities were set up by the French Ministry of Magic to try to remove the majority of veela from everyday wizard society, and because of the stipulations on the veela that remained in wizarding society, it usually worked. As everyone knows, veela are highly sexual creatures, and more often then not will try to experiment earlier then most individuals because of this the French Ministry of Magic outlawed veela children under the age of 17 from having sex with anyone, claiming it was unnatural (and because it was discovered that one of the Prime Ministers aids had a 12 year old veela as an indentured servant). However, the ministry conceded to veela making their own laws if they moved to the special "veela communities." Veela could bring any man or woman back to the community with them and mate with them, the only condition was that the non-veela partner had to be brought there of their own free will. Being enthralled and brought back by a veela was not considered by the government, or even the veela elders "of their own free will," no matter how many times the younger veela appealed that stipulation in the law saying that they came with them without resistance, they just needed a little "help."

This was why they had apparated in the woods outside the community, it would have been a dead give away if they had apparated to the main appartation point that the young man with her was enthralled, and had not come here "of his free will". Taking his hand she led Harry into the outskirts of the village, and meet up with her friends, they were all three roughly equal in power as far as the veela allure went so all three turned it up to full power, which caused Harry to get a glassy eyed expression, and stare dumbly at the three of them as they removed the glamours from Zoe, who in Harry's affected opinion looked even better with her hair silver in color.

After this Zoe smiled at Harry and said "Harry, meet my two friends Marisa, and Laret."

"Hello Harry." Laret said with a small smile on her face. "I'm pleased to meet you."

Harry muttered a small greeting just loud enough to be heard, and turned red in the face as his eyes took in her large breasts and small body. She was a c-cup, stood only about 5' 2" and her silver hair was down to her waist. Her hips where nicely developed and she had what could be described as the perfect hourglass figure.

Marisa stepped forward and taking one of his hands in hers said "Why were you in that restaurant all alone Harry, you looked a little depressed."

"Oh, no reason," Harry muttered "Just wanted to get away from everything for awhile."

"Does anyone else know you're here in France?" Marisa asked

"No, I came on my own and didn't want anyone to follow me."

The three girls were pleased by this, no one would know where he had gone before it was far too late for anyone to do anything about it. Taking his hands Laret said, "Come, let us go to Zoe's house, where we can get better acquainted with you Monsieur Potter." The three began to lead a slightly drooling Harry through the village toward one of the main houses.

Fleur was walking home from work and quite enjoying herself, it had been a relatively good day, several customers had come in and bought merchandise at the shop she worked at, and her annoying co-worker had called in sick today, apparently he had a "bad cough" and "was sore." Fleur's opinion, was that he had charmed another girl into his bed last night and stayed up too late shagging her. 'I can't believe how he can get that many girls in his bed with him.' Fleur thought, 'that's probably why he keeps asking me, thinks he is irresistible, good thing my allures stronger, or he would be.'

As she was walking down a side street, she caught sight of three teenage veela who she knew lived in the village, they were leading an equally young man in the same direction as her, toward the main houses. 'Hope he knows what he is getting into.' Fleur thought 'Most likely not.' Then as she was about to turn round and keep walking home, she noticed that the young mans face looked very familiar. 'Who is that?' Fleur asked herself. As she took another look she suddenly gasped in recognition, the glasses, the untidy black hair, the faint lightning bolt scar, it was Harry Potter! Fleur had not known Harry that long, but she knew him well enough to know that he would never have come here of his own free will, at least not with the intentions that the three girls seemed to have. Fleur knew Harry must be enthralled by the three, and this led to a problem. If she let them go and pretended she had not seen them, as soon as the veela bonded with him, he would come back to his senses as they temporarily passed out while the bond formed. After which, if he wanted, he could apparate to the Ministry of Magic, and by filing a suit, and giving a pensieve memory, could have the veela community stripped of it's land ownership license, and have the veela shipped out of country, citing them as "public health hazards". On the other hand, if she objected to their bonding Harry, she would have to either file a claim with the veela council that Harry had not come of his free will, then she would have to find evidence, which would take all together too much time, by then Harry would be bonded. Or she would have to challenge the three of them to a duel of wills, whoever had the strongest allure would win, it was the traditional way of deciding disputes over bond mates. The problem with this was that even though she was certain she could beat the three of them in the duel of wills, (she had one of the strongest allures among her generation,) she was almost certain that the three veela would become so enraged that they would transform, and assault her with handfuls of passion fire.

Fleur knew she could not do nothing, the future of her village non-withstanding she had come to see Harry as a friend after the Tri-wizard Tournament. What with saving her sister in the second task, and even saving her in the third task. She had visited in the evening immediately after the third task and talked with him about his experience in the grave yard. The dead look in his eyes as he told her of Cedrics murder, and the confrontation with Voldemort still gave her shivers. No fourteen year old should have been capable of a look like that. But he wore the look like it was not a new expression, as though he had experienced events like this before. Which she had supposed on further reflection, based on his history, he had.

Deciding to directly confront the three half veela, Fleur turned around and headed for the house they had just entered. It was one of the bigger houses in the village, proclaiming the fact that at least one of the girls was like her, descended from minor veela nobility from the days of old when the veela were self ruled under a feudal system.

She knew she had to do something now, she would worry about the consequences later.

The three veela, Laret, Marisa, and Zoe, led Harry into Zoe's house, and allure on full power, pulled him upstairs. Once in Zoe's bedroom, the three veela surrounded him and they leaned forward simultaneously, giving him and unobstructed view down their cleavage. Zoe whispered in Harry's ear, "Harry we want to bond to you, is that alright?"

By this point Harry was so far under their spell, he would have done anything for them so he answered yes in a dreamy sort of way.

Laret kissed him on the cheek and whispered, "Good then just lie back and enjoy the process Harry." And placing a palm on his chest she gently pushed him back until he fell on Zoe's bed.

"I have him first." Laret said with a hungry expression on her face, "I came up with this plan."

"But I'm the one that found him," Marisa said accusingly, "I should get first go."

"Oh please," Zoe said, "I should get him first, I'm the one who scouted him at the club, I'm the one who has been worked up the longest, if any one should get him first it should be me."

"Nice try Zoe, you love dancing, that's why you volunteered for that part, you didn't have too, so it's your fault you're worked up and will have to wait for your turn." Laret shot back.

This was one of the reasons that bonding multiple veela was discouraged, because veela are naturally protective of potential, or already bonded mates. It could even come to blows and passion fire shoot outs if the veela involved became enraged enough.

Fortunately for the girls, but not for Harry, Zoe defused the situation immediately by adding "I get him first or I will have the houses wards eject you two from this house."

"Wards, what wards, there aren't wards on your house Zoe. I would have noticed them sometime in the past 18 years I've known you." Laret said

"No actually, you wouldn't have, we had reactive wards installed, rather than passive wards. They are activated either by intent of the individual, or a code phrase. They have never been activated in my lifetime, but believe me they do work." Zoe shot back calmly.

Laret thought about it, if Zoe was bluffing and she probably was, then Laret could use that against her to make her go last for lying. If she wasn't however then with just a muttered phrase and she could have Laret and Marisa banished to the front yard, and they would not be able to get back in. Laret did not think it was a risk worth taking, so she acquiesced. "Alright Zoe, you can have him first, but you had better keep your word about sharing him."

Harry had been laying there the whole time staring at them in an enthralled trance, Zoe leaned over and lightly kissed him, causing him to groan and shiver on the bed. "Don't worry Laret, I'll keep my promise."

As Zoe was reaching for the snap on his jeans, the door suddenly flew open behind them and a voice said in French, "What have you done?"

All three girls spun on the spot and saw Fleur in the doorway; Fleur strode into the room and glared at the three girls, who glared back. "What business is it yours, what we have done or not done, or plan to do tonight?" Laret asked coldly.

"It is my business if three veela have enthralled a celebrity, one of the most famous people in our world. And then bring him back to our community against his will, with the obvious intention of bonding him against his will. Then run the risk of him slipping from your influence in the process, apparating to the ministry, filing a complaint against the village. Getting the village's land deed revoked, and every veela, including you three sent to another country. Most probably one with harsher "dark creature" laws and then having said celebrity either ask the ministry to break the bond, unknowingly killing you, or being forced to live with you in a different country for the rest of his life. So yes I would say it is my business what you three are doing."

The three girls paled, they had not thought about what could happen if they were caught bonding someone against their will. They had been so sure of their abilities that they had not even taken the time to think of the consequences of their actions.

In their nervousness, their allure slipped, and seizing the opportunity, Fleur released her own allure, which quickly over powered the three girls' allures, as they where no longer united in holding him, and enthralled Harry herself. Immediately Harry stood up and with a hungry expression walked slowly to Fleur, who took his hand and glared at the three pale girls, and said "next time consider the consequences to everyone, before you do something illegal, or stupid." And with that, Fleur pulled Harry from the room.

Once outside, Fleur made sure that Harry had followed her all the way out of the house, and then drew the allure back into herself, instantly, Harry's expression changed from a look of dreamy want, to pure self-loathing.

"I can't believe I let them do that." Harry snarled "They practically took possession of my brain, and they were going to bond me to raise their personal status, all they would have done is put themselves in danger."

Switching to slightly accented English Fleur said, "Harry I know your angry but just listen for a minute, they have deeper reasons than that, but you must listen if you are to hear them."

Harry took several deep breaths and then said, "Ok I'm listening."

Fleur began with a little history of the veela, how they used to be ruled by veela in a feudal society, and how the humans eventually out populated the veela, and invaded their kingdom. How the medieval French wizards had absorbed the veela culture into their own, and how even now, so many years later, so many wished they could go back to the old way of things.

"But we can't." Fleur explained, "There aren't enough of us to have a stable gene pool for reproduction. We would soon be inbreeding, which as we have seen from your pureblood families in Britain is not the smart thing to do. Now the only way for a veela to gain status in the eyes of the French Ministry is to bond to an influential wizard."

"Couldn't you gather all the various Veela communities around France and then leave, surely the entire veela population together would give you a stable gene pool."

Fleur smiled "Ah if only we could, veela are very possessive of both current and potential bond mates Harry, and if we were to gather together, without a king or queen. We would soon be at each others throats with handfuls of passion fire in defense of our own communities' young people. This has been tried before with the result being failure, and another 50 veela dead.

Harry looked stunned "Just out Of curiosity, what is the estimated veela population of Europe?"

"Oh, around 300,000 individuals with the veela powers, and another 500,000 who don't but can trace their lineage back to a veela in the last 4 generations."

Harry gaped at Fleur, "Wow, you guys really are dependent on us for survival as a species aren't you."

"Yes," Fleur said through gritted teeth, "We are."

Harry winced at the unintentional slight and said "Sorry, I was just surprised, that's all, I didn't know your population was that low."

Fleur sighed, "It's alright, don't be sorry, it's just difficult to accept that the race you belong to is on the world's magical endangered species list. If anything I should apologize for snapping at you, however let me take you back to Paris. I assume there is a reason you came all the way to France, and I'm sure being kidnapped was not the reason."

"Actually," Harry said "I came here to find you Fleur."

And at Fleur's questioning look, Harry said

"Something has happened in Britain, Dumbledore tried to kill me."

Fleur looked at Harry in shock "What! Dumbledore tried to kill you, why?"

"He apparently wants to rule magical Britain and sees me as a threat to his chances. I don't know why, I don't want the title of "Supreme Ruler of Britain."

Fleur knew Albus Dumbledore was an eccentric individual, but she had a hard time accepting that he was a manipulative bastard who wanted to essentially become what Voldemort had aspired to be.

"I'm not lying," Harry said "I swear on my life and my magic that what I have just told you is the absolute truth, so mote be it."

Harry flashed a bright white for a moment and the returned to normal Fleur stood, stunned that it was true Dumbledore had gone off the deep end.

"What do you need from me Harry?" Fleur asked.

"Asylum, both physically and politically, I need to remove myself from his control, and this was the only place I could think of."

"I can provide the physical asylum Harry, but your going to have to talk to my father about the politics, I can't guarantee you that myself."

Harry let out the breath he had been hold, he had not been sure if she would allow him to stay, and he would not have known what to do if she had sent him away.

"Thanks," Harry said. "Thanks for everything, including saving me from those three girls."

"You're very welcome Harry; after all, what are friends for?"

**This fic will be slightly different from some fics in that Harry is not invincible, he has weaknesses, the veela allure, is just one example, it seems like in every fic, Harry is immune to the allure, I don't see why, it makes the story more interesting if Harry is not "untouchable", but that's just my take on it.**

**Please review this fic, as always constructive criticism is welcome, but if you post a review just to bitch about my writing style, or how the plot is going, don't bother, I won't even read it.**

**Post publishing Authors Note, once again would like to thank my unofficial beta potterfanchuck for his help in reviewing this chapter, thanks man!**

**Until next time,**

**Cah11**


	3. Looking to the Past

**Hello again, first things first, to all those a little miffed about Harry being susceptible to the veela allure, this is not from a lack of reading the actual books, it is a device I am using to make future elements of the plot work. If you can't stand the thought of Harry being vulnerable in some aspects then don't even continue reading, don't misunderstand me, Harry will be an exceptionally powerful wizard, he will not be god-like however, he will have certain flaws and vulnerabilities he will have to overcome in the plot. If you disagree with this, then kindly read the message I posted at the end of the first chapter, it should not leave my opinion a mystery to anyone.**

**Disclaimer: JKR owns Harry Potter, not me, I make no money on this story, if I did I probably would not be writing it, I think I could find better things to do in my time if I had millions of dollars.**

**Recap from chapter 2**

"_What do you need from me Harry?" Fleur asked._

"_Asylum, both physically and politically, I need to remove myself from his control, and this was the only place I could think of."_

"_I can provide the physical asylum Harry, but your going to have to talk to my father about the politics, I can't guarantee you that myself."_

"_Harry let out the breath he had been hold, he had not been sure if she would allow him to stay, and he would not have known what to do if she had sent him away._

"_Thanks," Harry said. "Thanks for everything, including saving me from those three girls."_

"_You're very welcome Harry; after all, what are friends for?"_

**Cah11 humbly presents**

**Salvation**

**Chapter 3: Looking to the Past, Looking to the Future.**

Fleur led harry back to her house, on the way she asked Harry for as many details about Dumbledore's betrayal as Harry was willing to tell her. Stating from where he killed Voldemort, Harry went on to tell her of Dumbledore, Mundungus, Tonks, and Mad-Eye apparating into Voldemort's lair, Dumbledore ordering the other three to capture him, and his retaliation on the Dumbledore's three companions.

"Tonks and Mad-Eye believed Dumbledore." Fleur gasped. "They actually believed that you would go dark."

"Dumbledore can be very persuasive, to most wizards in Britain; any powerful person whose loyalty to the light is in question could be the next Dark Lord. They were only trying to protect everyone else. Unfortunately for them and Dumbledore, I have no plans to die, or go dark, unfortunately, Dumbledore being the 'savior of the light' is inscrutable, and will be even more untouchable once he delivers to the Ministry his statement that he defeated Voldemort and then was attacked by 'The Boy Who Lived' without provocation."

"Harry, you don't really think that your Ministry will believe him do you, I mean, when they check his wand and find that he never cast any spells during his supposed 'confrontation' wont they realize he is lying?" Fleur asked quizzically.

"Ah Fleur, if only that were so," Harry replied with a sad smile. "Unfortunately, Dumbledore wields too much political power in Britain to be questioned; also, most wizarding families in Britain have grown to trust Dumbledore's word implicitly, they will believe anything he says, the fact that he has three 'eye witnesses' only makes his case stronger."

"I can't believe even Mad-Eye and Tonks believed Dumbledore, they were your friends Harry!"

"Fear will cause people to do strange things Fleur, I don't like it either, but I can't change it."

At this point they arrived at Fleur's modestly sized house, and entering, Fleur said "I'm the only one who lives here right now, it is tradition in veela culture that once a veela moves out, no one else moves into the same house with him or her unless they are married, bonded, or are relatives, this was primarily adopted to stop veela from stringing humans along, tantalizing them, but never committing to them."

"So how will this work then?" Harry asked, "I don't want people to get the wrong idea, and this is likely to be a long term stay, I can't return to Britain until Dumbledore is powerless."

"In this case, Harry I think we can bend tradition a bit, after all, I am hiding you here, not wooing you, besides I don't think you will go out that much, not that I will stop you, but I don't think you want to be enthralled again by any teenage veela who happens to be walking by. Heed my warning, teenage veela are not known for their foresight Harry, most will bond you without a second thought, just for the status, or your money. In their blind quest for these things, they would not even consider your feelings in the matter, only what they want."

"Then am I really safer here then in Britain?" Harry asked indignantly, "or have I just gone from one danger to the next."

Catching the subtle question within the question, Fleur knew she would have to word her response very carefully, so Harry did not misunderstand her and believe every bad thing said about veela were true.

"Harry, you are perfectly safe here in my house, there are very few people who come to visit me here, mostly family, who are either bonded already in the case of my grandparents and parents, or too young yet to have the veela allure in the case of my younger sister Gabriella. It is only if you leave this house that you are in danger."

Harry nodded in understanding and then sighed and said, "Ok, where will I be sleeping?"

"There is a spare bedroom down the hall from mine, and some wizarding games downstairs in the basement. There isn't much else to do here I'm afraid, I don't do much here myself other than sleep, you will have to either amuse yourself here or risk going out and finding something to do in muggle Paris."

"Thanks for everything Fleur, a place to stay, and your warning. I will have to speak to your father soon about my situation, when would be the best time him to contact him?"

"I will floo call him soon, he should be off work by now, and ask if you can see him, I'm sure he will agree to speak with you, if for no other reason then he has wanted to meet the young man who saved both his daughters in the same year."

Harry blushed and said "Your family doesn't owe me anything Fleur; it was nothing more than anyone else would have done for you."

"Wrong Harry," Fleur said smiling "No one else would have stayed to save my sister from the bottom of the lake, all the other champions stayed long enough to save their hostages, then left without another thought. You were different though, you were thinking about people other then yourself, you were genuinely concerned for her safety. And not many people would have hung around long enough in the maze to send up red sparks saving me from a much worse fate then being stunned. Most would have simply walked past thinking 'one less champion in the competition.'"

"But Fleur, I did have those thoughts, a part of me was pleased that you were out of the running. A small part of me kept saying 'one champion down.'"

"Ah, but here is the difference, you stayed long enough to make sure I was safe, have you ever heard the adage, your actions always speak louder then words, or in this case thoughts? You may have thought such things Harry, but in the end, your actions announce your intentions clearly, you were more worried for my overall safety then for the prize waiting at the end of the maze."

At her mention of the cup, a shadow of depression passed in front of Harry's face and Fleur, while pretending to not have noticed winced internally, thinking 'ok, touchy subject, need to talk about something else.'

They stood there for a second in an uncomfortable silence before Fleur said, "Well if you will excuse me I will make that floo call home for my father, he should be off work by now, make yourself comfortable in the living room, I should only be 10 minutes at most."

And turning she walked to the fire place and throwing a pinch of golden powder in the opening yelled, "Delacour ancestral home, Paris." And with a whoosh was gone. Turning to the living room, Harry sat down in one of the chairs and got comfortable.

The Delacour ancestral home was quite large, 4 floors, 10 bedrooms in total, 13 bathrooms (one for each of the bedrooms and three others), two dining rooms (a formal one, and a non-formal one), a boardroom, a study, an entrance hall, and a grand sitting room. The size of the house was explained by the fact that at one point the Delacours had sheltered several veela families during conflict known to the muggles as the Second World War, but to veela it was remembered as the War of Tears. It was known thus because the leader of Germany, Adolf Hitler, who was a wizard as dark as they came, began to hunt down Jewish muggles, and other 'undesirables' most notably the veela. Because of this the Delacours, a well to do wizarding family, sheltered veela families from the Nazis, it was during this time that Fleur's father met her mother and they got married, this is the point where the Delacour line was infused with veela blood.

Fleur stepped out of the fireplace in her parent's home near Paris and started to move toward her fathers study on the second floor of the estate. She peeked in and saw her father sitting at his desk looking over some official looking paperwork. Walking over she respectfully waited for her father to finish his paragraph and then said "Father I must speak with you."

Mr. Delacour looked up and his face split into a wide grin as he said "Fleur, how are you, I didn't know you would be coming by today for a visit. Is everything all right?"

"Yes, everything is mostly fine father, the store is doing well, and I am keeping out of trouble, well mostly anyway."

"Honey, please call me Dad, or Daddy, or even Papa, none of this formal 'father' stuff, I get enough formal talk at work to last me through the day." Mr. Delacour said with a twinkle in his eye.

Fleur smiled in return and said "Ok Daddy, it just feels so weird calling you by such a childish name when I'm 20 now."

"Ah, but you'll always be the little girl I remember running around asking more questions then you had a right, or supposedly the knowledge to be asking. Anyway, you said you had something you need to talk to me about?"

"Yes Daddy," a serious expression came over Fleur's face and she got right down to the problem. "Something has happened in Britain, Lord Voldemort has been defeated, you can guess by whom."

Mr. Delacour sighed, "Harry Potter," He waited for Fleur's nod in the affirmative. "But of course if what you tell me about the boy is true, there was a complication that was not his fault, but puts him in mortal peril."

"This is so, it appears a situation has arisen, and he has had to flee here to France, and has now found his way to my house through a very unique way of locating and transporting himself to the veela community where I now live. I will not go into details of what the situation is, he could better inform you than me, but it is dire, and he must see you tonight, or at your earliest convenience."

"I have some free time right now, I can come over and talk to the boy, this paperwork can wait. After all, hearing this story will no doubt be more interesting than reading a cauldron bottoms report from that Weasley."

"Thank you daddy, I guarantee you won't be disappointed by the story."

So Fleur and her Father walked to the fireplace and throwing in a pinch of floo powder each they said, "Fleur's House, Veela Community 27." And with a whooshing sound they were gone.

Stepping out of the fireplace one after the other, Fleur and Mr. Delacour moved immediately to the sitting room, where they found Harry asleep on one of the couches, his face had the expression of one who was enduring an agony so great, it could have overwhelmed a lesser man, and caused him to end his life to stop the pain. Walking up to him Fleur placed a hand on his shoulder and shook him gently saying, "Harry wake up, my father is here to see you." Almost instantly Harry was awake and had drawn his wand so fast the other two did not know where he had pulled it from.

Harry relaxed as he became aware of the people in the room and lowered his wand saying, "Sorry, but after living in danger for so long, there are habits you pick up that might accidently hurt those you do not intend to hurt. My advice to you, if you do not want to be stunned, disarmed, and restrained, lightly tap my left shoulder, it is the safe wake-up call me and my friends have been using for the past year, do not wake me up any other way, as I will most likely injure you."

Mr. Delacour was surprised by the boy's fast reflexes, and appalled that a young man of 16 could have already picked up the waking habits, and twitches of a soldier. Walking over, Mr. Delacour said, "I will be sure to keep that in mind Harry, it saddens me that you have picked up such habits though."

"They were necessary habits Mr. Delacour, if I had not picked them up, I would not be standing here right now, most likely I would be dead, and Voldemort would be attacking France with the full might of magical Britain behind him."

"You speak of that possibility as if there was no other outcome in the case of your death, how can you know that if you had failed Voldemort would automatically win?" Mr. Delacour asked, "Surely someone else would have stood up to him."

"I am sure many people would have stood up to him, however there are certain factors that you are unaware of, and before I make you aware of them, and before I tell you my story, a couple oaths must be made, one by me, one by you, and one by Fleur."

"What kind of Oaths?" Fleur asked.

"I need an oath of silence from you and your father, and an oath of truthfulness from me, so you do not doubt my words, we do not have time for doubt, all events before now were preordained, but now there are endless possible futures, we must work to ensure that the best one possible becomes reality."

Mr. Delacour and Fleur both swore a magically binding oath to never tell what they heard from Harry to another person, nor to tell anyone he was in Fleur's house without Harry's permission, and Harry swore a magically binding oath that everything he was about to tell them was the truth.

After the oaths were given Harry took a deep breath and told Mr. Delacour everything he told Fleur. After he was through Mr. Delacour looked very pale and said "Dumbledore betrayed you, he wants to rule magical Britain?"

"It would appear so sir; he even went so far as to ask me to commit suicide by over dosing on the draft of living death."

Muttering to himself, Mr. Delacour said, "Great, was hoping this would not happen during my lifetime, but it would appear I must live through one more thing before I return to the Earth."

"What do you mean Daddy?" Asked Fleur, puzzled.

"I mean honey, that the events that are playing out, may have been more preordained then even Harry knows. There was another prophesy made, the day before you assaulted Voldemort's fortress, and its contents warned of events that sound very like these."

_England, 12 hours before Harry's attack on Voldemort_

Hermione was sitting in one of the guest rooms of Grimmald Place talking with Luna, "I want to ask Ron to be my boyfriend Luna, but I'm just not sure we have enough in common." She said nervously.

"Well let's think, what do you have in common?" Luna said. "You're both friends with Harry, you both hate Voldemort for one reason or another, you're both intelligent, maybe in different areas, but intelligent, and you have feelings each other. I would say that's enough in common to at least give the relationship a try."

Hermione had at first been surprised that Luna could be so perceptive, having taken her, unique personality at face value. But she had learned that once you get to know her, the unique personality was nothing but a charade to discourage people who were fair weather friends from even associating with her, deciding that no friends were better than people who pretend, but abandon you at the first sign of danger.

"That's true, I think we could make it work, even if that is all we have in common, I expect that we will get to know each other better as we spend more time alone." Hermione commented. Just then the two girls heard from downstairs.

"GIRLS, TIME FOR SUPPER, COME DOWN AND WASH UP."

"COMING MRS. WEASLEY." Hermione shouted back and standing up she started to move to the door. She was almost to it when her brain registered that Luna was not following her. Turning around she asked "Luna aren't you…" But never finished her question, Luna was sitting erect on the bed, her eyes were glazed over and she was looking into the distance as if seeing something from very far away. Her face was entirely expressionless, and opening her mouth she spoke in a deep low monotone.

"_The pieces are in place,_

_The events coming to conclusion,_

_One way or the other, the fate of two races hangs in the balance,_

_One the overlord, one the oppressed,_

_The warriors of love and desire will try to break their bondage this year,_

_But their success or defeat lies in the hands of one individual,_

_They must learn to overcome their demons,_

_And embrace the flames of life,_

_Or the world will once again be cast into darkness,_

_One that will have no end."_

Luna sat stock still for a second longer and then suddenly her face lost its paleness, and she was once again smiling and asked "What, did you say something?"

"N-no," Hermione replied, "It-it's just that… Molly called us down for dinner." She finished hesitantly. She was about to ask if Luna remembered what she just said, but, if her attitude was any indicator, she did not. Surely she would have been acting subdued if she remembered **predicting, **('an actual prediction' Hermione thought, 'wow, Harry wasn't wrong, that was just creepy.'), the revolution of an oppressed race, and that the outcome of such a revolution was dependent on one individual.

She thought about whom the 'oppressed race' was, she thought she knew who the overlords were, no other race on Earth acted more domineering then the wizarding race, the oppressed race could be any number of peoples. The goblins, the vampires, the werewolves, she shuddered at the thought; if one of those three races were planning rebellion the conflict would be long and bloody. If it were vampires or werewolves, every victim of the conflicts would increase their ranks, and if it were goblins, they would need to enter their magically protected domain and siege their cities. In any of the scenarios, many lives would be lost. 'But wait a minute,' Hermione thought, 'there was a clue, Luna referred to them as "the warriors of love and desire", but who could that be? I don't remember any race ever being referred to as the "warriors of love and desire". If it were just "the creatures of love and desire" I would have guessed the veela, but I would hardly call them warriors, they did not even participate in the great conflict that consumed the world during WW2.'

Thoughts no more clear then they were before, Hermione put it from her mind, saying to herself 'I'll come back to that latter, for now I need to concentrate on asking Ron out, why he can't just do it himself I will never know, where is his Gryffindor bravery?'

After the visit from Mr. Delacour, Harry had spent the last few days in relative inactivity in Fleur's house recovering his strength after battling Voldemort, Dumbledore, and then making an international apparation jump from Britain to France. Mr. Delacour had refused to tell Harry the contents of the prophesy because he had been sworn to secrecy about such matters and needed the authorization of the Prime Minister before he could reveal its contents.

A few days had passed and Fleur was walking home from work. She had been working late; taking care of inventory because her co-worker, his name was Ben, had not come to work again that day. 'If he's not careful, he'll get himself fired.' Fleur thought, 'not that that would necessarily be a bad thing.' Entering her house, she locked the door and headed up stairs. As she walked down the hall to her room she passed by the door of the guest room Harry was staying in when she heard a small whimper float through the door. Pausing for a moment, she tiptoed up to the door and pressed her ear against it, what she heard unsettled her slightly. She could hear someone, most probably Harry sobbing softly and crying out, reaching out with her powers, Fleur probed the room for emotions, what she felt made her stumble back reeling, as if a physical blow had fallen on her.

Veela have powers other than the ability to call passion fire, or to enthrall members of the opposite sex, they are also adept at sensing the emotions of other individuals, an ability that harkens back to ancient times, when they used the ability to detect the intent of outsiders, to discover whether they be friend or foe.

The emotions of pain and lose coming from inside the bedroom were so great, so unrestrained that Fleur had never sensed their like before. It was as if the pain and agony of the world were emanating from one person. Opening the door quietly, as she had no wish to be stunned by Harry accidentally, Fleur slipped into the room and walked over to the bed. Harry lay there, tears streaming from his eyes, his body covered in sweat, muttering "Please, stop it, your hurting me, please stop."

Deciding she could not leave this alone, Fleur reached down and gently tapped Harry on his left shoulder. Harry stilled and then slowly opened his eyes. When he saw Fleur looking down on him with concern, he muttered, "Sorry for keeping you up, please Fleur, go back to sleep."

"What were you dreaming about?" Fleur asked.

"Nothing, Just a stupid nightmare, I'm fine."

Fleur stared down at him in disbelief and said "Harry, Veela are natural empaths, we can sense strong emotions, and the strength of the emotions I sensed through that door almost knocked me over, and they weren't pleasant emotions either. And even if I wasn't an epithet, you were sobbing in your sleep, and you're covered in sweat. So don't give me any bull about it just being a bad dream."

"Sorry Fleur, but I never had a, what would you call it, a happy family experience after my parents died, and I don't even remember them, all I have is bad memories from my Aunt and Uncle's house."

"What do you dream about, maybe if you tell me; it will make you feel better."

Sighing Harry told her about his dream where he is at Privet Drive sitting in his room upstairs. He told her how after about a minute Dudley would walk in and begin to insult Harry about having no parents. He described how he made a move forward to try to push Dudley out of the room, when from no where there was a knife in Dudley's hand. "And he always says, 'I got you now Potter, you just tried to assault me. I am now legally allowed to defend myself.' And then he comes at me and starts slashing at me. Soon I'm covered in cuts and then my Uncle Vernon walks in, takes one look at me and says 'Good job Dud, now if you can get him in the throat, right below the chin, you can cut his wind pipe so he dies slowly by suffocation, and can't cry out for help.' 'Good thinking dad.' Dudley always says and then comes at me and I can see his intent in his eyes. I reach out and grab my wand but when I point it at Dudley and cast a spell, nothing happens, and then Dudley laughs and says 'Don't you know Potter, your not allowed to cast magic on muggles.' Then he slashes at my throat and then everything goes dark and I usually wake up."

By the end of the retelling Harry's eyes had that dead look again, Fleur stood there, stunned speechless by the content of the dream. She knew something was wrong with Harry's social skills, he had been very slow to trust her after the Triwizard Tournament, and she had noticed that at school events he had always been shy and out of the way. Even at the Yule Ball he had tried his hardest not to be noticed by the other students even though he could have had any girl he wanted there as a dance partner. And then at the ball, he had danced the mandatory two songs and then left. At first she had assumed it was because he thought he was better than the 'commoners' but had learned from the people at the Ravenclaw table the next day that Harry had always been like that, preferring isolation, except for a few close friends, the Weasleys, and Granger. She had come back to France wondering if there was something wrong with his emotional development, now she thought she knew there was something wrong, and she thought she might have also discovered the cause.

Fleur decided to test the waters with Harry to see if she could confirm her theory about the Dursleys being responsible for Harry's emotional trauma. "But they wouldn't really do that to you would they? I mean, don't they love you?"

"Love me, bah, let me show you exactly how much they loved me."

And drawing his wand he gave it a little flick and a pensieve appeared in mid air. Putting his wand to his temple, Harry began to withdraw a memory, once it had separated from his mind; he placed it in the pensieve.

"Go ahead, visit it, this was the present I got on my 8th birthday." Harry said.

Fleur reached over and touched the surface of the liquid and fell down into a memory containing a much younger Harry. He was much shorter than present day Harry, but everything else seemed to be the same, long unruly hair, green eyes, pale skin, and a thin lightning scar across his forehead. At the beginning of the memory, the 8 year old Harry was laying on his bed in a very small room, (Fleur thought it looked more like the size of a closet then an actual room), he was crying. Fleur's heart seemed to melt with compassion when Harry sobbed out "They forgot my birthday _again_, they forget every year."

Suddenly the door to his room opens and Fleur gasped as she noticed that the door led into what was clearly a downstairs hallway, Harry really did sleep in a closet. A man entered and yelled "What are you doing in here boy, you should be out in the kitchen cooking breakfast, now Petunia is cooking it because I don't have time to wait before going to work, what do you have to say for yourself boy?"

"I'm so-sorry Uncle Vernon." Harry sobbed, "But today is my bi-birthday, and you and Aunt Petunia forgot about it."

Uncle Vernon scrunched up his face as though trying to remember something unpleasant, "That's right, it is your birthday today, isn't it, how old are you now?" Fleur was appalled that Harry's Uncle didn't even know how old he was.

"8" Harry said hopefully, "Will I get presents?"

"Oh yea, you'll get presents." Uncle Vernon said grinning in a sadistic way. "Here's what you're getting, I've decided it's time you pulled your own weight, your old enough to start doing some of the work around here. You are now responsible for doing the laundry, mowing the lawn, tending the flower garden, and re-staining the fence out back. And make sure these things get done by the end of the week, every week, except the staining, I'll let you have the rest of the summer for that."

Then with a malicious grin, Vernon withdrew from Harry's closet and walked away yelling, "And tomorrow, you're cooking breakfast boy."

The younger Harry's face at first registered nothing but blank shock, then laying down his face kept the same expression, but tears immediately began to fall from his eyes.

The memory ended and Fleur felt herself floating back up to the surface of the pensieve, once she had landed, Harry withdrew the memory, and placed it back in his mind, vanishing the pensieve back to wherever he kept it whenever he wasn't using it.

Fleur looked at Harry in shock and whispered, "They really did that to you, disregarded your birthday, and gave you more work to do instead of presents?"

"It wasn't the first time," Harry said bitterly, "And it wasn't the last time, the first real birthday I ever had was when Hagrid broke down the door in a shack where Uncle Vernon was trying to hide us from the wizarding world, revealed I was a wizard, and then took me to Diagon Alley to get my school things."

"But that means you would have been 11," Fleur said, "You spent 10 years having your birthdays ignored?"

"Yea, pretty much." Harry said emotionlessly, "It wasn't ever that fun at my Aunt and Uncles house, the only time I've really felt happy and free was at Hogwarts, and I can't even go there anymore."

Fleur reached out and put her arms around Harry. He sat stiff as a board in her embrace and didn't relax again until she released him a few seconds latter.

"Fleur, really, there isn't anything you can do for me, my trauma is more emotional than physical, please go to bed, you don't want to be tired tomorrow on my account."

"Harry, I won't even be able to sleep at night if I think you are being plagued by that nightmare every night. I think there is something I could try actually, here, lay down."

Harry lay down, and releasing a tiny portion of her allure, not enough to enthrall him, but enough to get him to relax, Fleur began to sing softly. Before drifting off to sleep, Harry thought that Fleur had beautiful voice, almost like how he imagined an angel would sound.

Fleur stayed with him, emitting the tiny portion of her allure and singing until Harry was fast asleep, then she sat there watching him for another minute, wondering how badly damaged his psyche was, if it was salvageable, and what she was going to do to fix it. Immediately a blind rage against the Dursleys surfaced, and she had to restrain herself from apparating to Number 4 and attacking everyone on the premises, burning them to bones with passion fire. 'What's going on with me,' Fleur asked herself 'Why am I thinking such violent thoughts, I've never wanted to kill anyone before, even if they did do wrongs to my friends."

Confused, and tired, Fleur stood up and headed off for bed, as she lay down; she noticed a black spot on her left ring finger. 'That's weird;' she thought 'I don't remember getting that finger dirty today.' She rubbed at the spot on her finger for a second, and when she stopped, the spot was gone. Thinking that was that, Fleur laid down and immediately fell asleep, as she slept, she had a dream she had been having for some time of a child running up to her and hugging her, and her hugging him back, then a man who's name she couldn't quite place coming up behind her and hugging them both, laughing. She dreamed of this all night long, and in the morning, she remembered the dream not at all.

**Well chapter 3 is done; thank you to all the people out there that reviewed the previous chapters, and remember to review this one, a writer can't know what his audience wants unless they tell him.**

**Sorry for the relatively dull chapter, but I needed to set up the plot for the rest of the story, the next chapter will be much more exciting, I promise.**

**Until next time,**

**CAH11**


	4. Revelations and Betrayals

**Well here is the next installment but first, to all those who left reviews, thank you, and a big thanks to those who pointed out glaring errors in my writing and grammar, English was never my best subject, and still being in school, well I'm tired all the time, so sue me (kidding), but seriously, hope this chapter draws good reviews from readers the same as the other chapters did, so here we go.**

**Disclaimer: As mentioned above, and in every other chapter I have written I have no wish to be sued, so I am legally obligated to say that I do not own the Potter Universe, it would be nice, especially the money, but there you are, nothing to be done now.**

**Recap from chapter 3**

_Fleur stayed with him, emitting the tiny portion of her allure and singing until Harry was fast asleep, then she sat there watching him for another minute, wondering how badly damaged his psyche was, if it was salvageable, and what she was going to do to fix it. Immediately a blind rage against the Dursleys surfaced, and she had to restrain herself from apparating to Number 4 and attacking everyone on the premises, burning them to bones with passion fire. 'What's going on with me,' Fleur asked herself 'Why am I thinking such violent thoughts, I've never wanted to kill anyone before, even if they did do wrongs to my friends."_

_Confused, and tired, Fleur stood up and headed off for bed, as she lay down; she noticed a black spot on her left ring finger. 'That's weird;' she thought 'I don't remember getting that finger dirty today.' She rubbed at the spot on her finger for a second, and when her she stopped, the spot was gone. Thinking that was that, Fleur laid down and immediately fell asleep, as she slept she had a dream she had been having for some time of a child running up to her and hugging her, and her hugging him back, then a man who's name she couldn't quite place coming up behind her and hugging them both, laughing. She dreamed of this all night long, and in the morning, she remembered the dream not at all._

**Cah11 humbly presents**

**Salvation**

**Chapter 4: Revelations and Betrayals**

The next morning Harry was sitting in Fleur's basement trying to make the day go by as fast as possible. However he had already exhausted the amusement potential of all the games that were in the basement, and Harry was beginning to grow restless. Thinking that he might spend the day in Paris, Harry quickly dressed in some of Dudley's old cloths that at least fit ok, and then apparated to Paris.

Appearing in an unoccupied alley, Harry made his way to a main street and looked for a tourist map. Finding one he perused the list of tourist attractions nearby. Deciding to visit the nearby art museum, Harry made his way to the building and entered. Once inside, he lost himself in the masterpieces of art and sculptures. Moving further into the museum, Harry found one piece that he actually could identify by name, the Mona Lisa. He looked with surprise the painting was much smaller than most pictures made it appear. Looking at the painting itself, Harry noted the small almost half smile that the women in the picture had on her face. It was as though she knew something no one else did and found it amusing. Moving away Harry spent the next several hours looking at the many priceless paintings until he realized that it was late and he had to be getting back.

As he was leaving the museum he saw a figure with bushy brown hair turn a corner into a back alley behind the museum. 'Hermione.' Was Harry's first thought, 'But what is she doing here? Maybe her family is vacationing here.' Moving forward, Harry slipped into the alley and walked down toward another corner. Turning around it he drew his wand in the quick draw that had saved his life many times before aiming it down the alley at.

Nothing.

There was nothing at the end of the alley other then a solid wall 15 feet high and the sides of the two buildings that comprised the alley. Putting his wand away and turning around, puzzled as to where Hermione could have gone. Harry had only enough time to jump out of the way as a burst of red light sped at him. 'Shit' Harry cursed his own stupidity, 'of course it's a trap you dumb-ass, Hermione never said she was coming to France this year.'

Pulling his wand, Harry had just enough time to shield the next three spells that flew at him. He winced at the drop in magical power that each hit cost him. Knowing he had to get on the offensive, he began to cast bludgeoning hexes at random, hoping to catch his attacker in the spray of wand fire. He was rewarded with a smack and a yelp as one of his blind spells found its target and threw them against one of the alley walls. Taking advantage of this Harry quickly stunned the fighter, then walking up he kicked the person's wand away, and then conjured ropes that bound the person tightly. After this Harry cast _enervate_ on the person then pushed back the hood of their cloak. He gasped as the head of Nymphadora Tonks was revealed. She blinked her eyes a few times then looked up into Harry's eyes. Immediately an expression of fear crossed her face before a mask of hatred was hastily erected to conceal her fear.

"Damn you Harry, you're too powerful, now you have me, what are you going to do? Torture me, imperious me, rape me? What will it be this time?"

Harry was taken back by the look of loathing on Tonks' face and by the things she thought he would do to her. Deciding that there was no other option he said. "No, I won't do any of those things, rather I thought I would obliviate you, and then send you back to Dumbledore via portkey. However I will only remove our location from your memory so you can tell my friends at home that any lies that Dumbledore is spreading about me are false, but can't tell Dumbledore where I am."

Pointing his wand at Tonks who flinched, Harry said, "_Obliviate_" concentrating on what her wanted Tonks to forget. Her expression went blank and before she could recover from the memory removal Harry pointed his wand at her coat and said, "_Portus._" Her coat glowed blue for a moment then Tonks disappeared with a soft pop caused by a micro explosive recompression where her body had been. Walking out of the alley Harry checked around to make sure no muggles had witnessed the magic that had taken place and that there were no other order members in the vicinity before apparating back to Fleur's house.

As he appeared in the kitchen, Fleur walked in the front door, and seeing that Harry's cloths were dirty, knew something was up. "Harry what happened to you?" Fleur asked. On closer inspection she noticed that he looked tired, as though he had been running, or had expended a lot of magic in a very short period of time. His face also looked haunted, as though he had seen some vile atrocity.

"Nothing, I had a small scrape with Tonks in Paris, that's all. I modified her memory so she won't remember where I am and then portkeyed her back to Hogwarts."

"What do you mean that's nothing." Fleur said gasping, "Harry, she could have captured you. If that had happened you would be dead now."

"It doesn't matter; I won't leave this house again unless it is to your family's house that should be a safe arrangement."

Harry turned as if to end the conversation, but Fleur still wanted an answer to the look on Harry's face. Walking up behind him and placing a hand on his shoulder to prevent him leaving, she asked, "Harry, what else is wrong? You're so tense, and the emotions I sense coming off you so negative, there must be something else wrong."

Harry bowed his head and spoke in little more then a whisper. "When I captured Tonks, she immediately thought I was going to torture her, or rape her, or even use unforgivables against her. She actually thought I would hurt her, I saw the fear in her eyes, the fear of what I would do."

As Harry stood there crying silently, Fleur inwardly cursed Dumbledore and his manipulations. He had played his part well, and had tricked Harry's friends the only family he had into thinking he had gone insane, that he would hurt them at the slightest provocation. And that he was the next dark lord who would try to take Britain. Moving in front of Harry, Fleur took one of his arms in her hands and led him into the sitting room. Once there she sat him down on one of the couches and enfolded the young man in a hug as he continued to cry on her shoulder. Soon Harry had exhausted his emotions and looking at Fleur asked. "Am I a bad person? Is what they are saying true? Am I too powerful to let live? All my experiences say that power corrupts people. I don't feel corrupt, but then again I am probably blind to the corruption itself. Maybe I am too dangerous to keep alive, I should hand myself over to Dumbledore and die."

"No Harry, you shouldn't!" said Fleur fiercely. "You are not dark, Dumbledore is dark, and everything you have ever done has been for someone else. Dumbledore wants to kill you for personal gain. Even when you committed murder, you did not do it in cold blood, nor for a selfish purpose. And you didn't do it for money, even though Voldemort had a one million galleon bounty on his head. You didn't do it for power or fame, even though the slayer of Voldemort would be hailed as the savior of the wizarding world. And would wield exceptional political power, you could have had any politician eating out of your hand, and yet you did not do it for the power. You even could have done it simply to avenge the deaths of your parents. But you did it not because of the past, but for the future. You did it so that new generations of witches and wizards could live freely in this world without having to be afraid of their shadows. Your motivations were entirely pure, you have no dark ambition. Don't believe Dumbledore's lies, it doesn't matter what he says, they have no power over you, until you start to believe the lies yourself."

Harry wiped his eyes, and giving Fleur a watery smile said, "Thank you Fleur, I needed that. Sometimes it just feels like the world is on my shoulders, and that I'm being crushed under the weight. What you said really helped, but I'm not really hungry, I think I'll turn in for the night."

Fleur called after him, "Harry just one question, and then I'll leave you alone."

"What?"

"Have you never talked to anyone about your problems even your friends?"

Harry looked uncomfortable and said "No, why?"

"Because if you need someone to talk to, listen to, or if you just need a good cry, come and find me, ok."

Harry gave Fleur and exhausted smile and said "Thanks Fleur that means a lot to me." Then he headed upstairs.

'He carries a burden so great, it is amazing it does not overwhelm him.' Fleur thought. 'I will help him in any way I can, because he is my friend.' Again Fleur felt a fierce protectiveness of Harry rise up in her, and the temptation to lash out at those causing Harry pain was almost too hard to resist. Only the knowledge that if she got herself captured or killed, Harry would blame himself held her back. 'What is happening, why do I feel like this?' Fleur asked herself, confused and slightly scared. 'Why am I having all these feelings of retribution all of a sudden, it doesn't make any sense.' Thinking it was just stress, Fleur headed upstairs and got ready for bed and soon fell asleep, as she did she didn't notice the spot of black that had reappeared on her left ring finger, it had grown slightly, begun to expand around the circumference of her finger just the smallest amount, it took the shape of two parallel lines about a quarter inch apart. And as Fleur fell deeper into sleep, it faded away to nothing.

The next day, Harry woke up feeling drained, both magically, and emotionally. Getting up, he showered and dressed in some clothes he had shrunk the night before to fit him better, and walked downstairs. Arriving in the kitchen, he was unsurprised to find a note from Fleur on the counter, she went to work early so she could get more hours in, and was often gone by the time Harry got up. Harry had to read it two or three times to make sure that he had understood it correctly, it read.

_Harry,_

_This morning my mother floo called me and asked me a question, she wanted to know if it was all right for you to come to our family's ancestral home near Paris to visit with her and my sister Gabrielle. Of course I said it was all right with me, but the real choice is up to you. Whether you decide to or not, floo call my mother before the afternoon to let her know, simply call out Delacour Ancestral Home, Paris, and you will get there._

_Fleur_

_P.S. Watch out for my sister, although she has not yet developed the full allure, there times when it suddenly comes to her at full power and because she is unfamiliar with the methods of containing it, and she cannot control it. If you begin to feel any emotional pull from my sister, either let my mother know and she will counteract it. Or if you two are alone, get out of the room as fast as you can before you become completely enthralled. Otherwise you may end up doing something you will regret later._

Harry sat back and sighed. He thought he should go visit the Delacour family, if for no other reason then their daughter was risking her safety to hide him at her house. At the same time, he did not want to be in close proximity with a young, untrained veela who could not control her powers and which manifested at random. He had hated the lack of control he had had when the three teenage veela had enthralled him at the club. He had been willing at the time, but had not been in his right mind when they had talked of binding themselves to him. He was sure that Fleur's sister would not intentionally enthrall him. But if she could not yet control her powers, then he would only have a few seconds to make an escape before the allure had him firmly under its spell if it started to manifest itself.

'I would be safe enough as long as Mrs. Delacour is always with me.' Harry thought to himself, 'It's not like I have to see Gabrielle alone.' Deciding he would go visit the Delacours, Harry proceeded to do anything to make the morning pass quickly including clean a little bit, just dusting and taking care of a few dishes. As soon as 11:00 rolled around, Harry went to the fireplace and throwing in a pinch of floo powder yelled "Delacour Ancestral Home, Paris." Immediately Harry began to spin very fast, 'There has got to be a better way to travel long distances.' Harry thought rather queasily.

Stepping out of the fireplace Harry saw a regal looking woman walk into the room; she was around Fleur's height, and of similar build with the long silver hair associated with those who had veela blood. She strode forward with a welcoming smile on her face and said, "Hello Harry, welcome to our home, you may call me Aponline, or Mrs. Delacour if that makes you feel uncomfortable."

"Thanks Mrs. Delacour, wow your family has a big house, isn't there only your husband, yourself, and your daughter living here?"

"You're wondering why we need such a big house for only three people yes? Well, during what you know as the World War 2, it was not only Jews that were persecuted by the fascists, they also killed many magical creatures in their attempt to create the "pure race." When the Germans conquered France, many veela families realized the danger to themselves and knowing that the Delacours were an old wizarding family, they asked for asylum, not unlike what you did with Fleur." Mrs. Delacour smiled at Harry and then continued, "The house at the time was a much more modest size than it is now, and not all the families seeking shelter could fit in comfortably, so the Delacour family was forced to expand. I was only a little girl back in the 1940's and so I don't remember much of it. But I remember my parents being very frightened at the time about what was happening. The French government had just crumbled, becoming a shadow of what it once was, and the French army was fleeing to the south, leaving us people in the north unprotected."

"I have another question," Harry said, "I have seen veela transform before, and I have seen the power they have in an offensive and defensive capacity. Why did the veela not try to engage the Germans during the war, not to sound rude, but surly one veela would be worth a whole squad of German soldiers." Harry was recalling one of his engagements in Britain where he had fought half a dozen Death Eaters, and then had to contend with a rogue veela that had turned dark. The sheer power of the veela had nearly overwhelmed Harry as he had had to dodge balls of passion fire the size of bowling balls. As well as sidestep the claws and wings of the avian-like creature, and try to keep his mind on the fight while being distracted by the veela's allure. In the end he had been forced to resort to what many people considered the dark arts and used two spells, one that drained physical strength, and a powerful _sectumsempra_ to finally end the fight. The _sectumsempra_ and completely removed the veela's left arm/wing and she was now lying in a pool of her own blood. Walking up to her, he had offered to heal the wound enough to stop the bleeding and then transport her to St. Mungos for treatment. She had only smiled sadly and said, "No, you have beaten me, you have finally done what many witches and wizards have failed to do. Now that I am no longer whole, there is no reason to keep going, may you live long and have good fortune." With that, the veela suddenly burst into flames much like a phoenix, but left nothing behind but ashes.

"One reason that we veela did not attempt to engage the Germans directly is that we would be in direct violation of the statute of secrecy. And even though it may not seem as though it would be a big deal to you, it was still a big deal to the French Ministry. Also the German leader Hitler had somehow developed a potion that made his soldiers immune to the effects of the allure, which removed one of our principle weapons for self defense. Hitler did not even need to break the statute of secrecy to administer the potion. He just had to add it to the list of vaccines that the German soldiers needed to take claiming it prevented certain diseases found here in France. So you see we were at an extreme disadvantage not least because the Germans had us out numbered six to one."

"Oh," Was Harry's only reply. He had to admit, the fight he had with the rogue veela would have been much less difficult if it weren't for the veela's allure, he could see why the veela held back during the war.

"However, I did not ask to see you to bore you with our history, I asked you here to find out what you are doing about the situation in Britain."

"Well Mrs. Delacour, mostly I'm just hiding right now, I don't really know what to do next though."

"If I may ask, have you heard anything about your godfathers will yet? It may be that Sirius left you something."

"I have not heard anything about his will, and I have been wondering about that. I figured they would contact me if Sirius left me something, and I was sure he would. But I have not received any post from Gringotts, or the Ministry on the subject yet."

"Well Harry it may be that you are actually the primary beneficiary, and that Dumbledore somehow went in your stead to accept the inheritance."

Harry's face instantly clouded with anger. "If he has circumvented the legal system on this matter I will kill him. Maybe not today, maybe not a year from now, but one day I will repay him in full for the danger he put me in, and the position he put Sirius in."

Mrs. Delacour was not shocked at this pronouncement; she actually agreed whole heartedly. At the height of her culture's power, a veela would have killed another for a lesser offence than circumventing the will of one who had passed on.

"Thank you for informing me of this possibility Mrs. Delacour." Harry said much more calmly, "I shall be writing to Gringotts to discover if the will was circumvented by Dumbledore."

Suddenly a female voice rang out from the hall in French, "Mama, who are you talking to?" A girl about 13 years old walked into the room, Gabrielle Delacour looked like her sister in miniature. Long silver hair, perfect hourglass figure, and what was turning into a great body. Upon seeing Harry, she immediately blushed and in a quieter voice said, "Sorry Mama, I did not know you were talking to anyone important."

"No matter Gabrielle, you did not interrupt anything too important." Mrs. Delacour replied "In fact Harry was just leaving to attend to some business."

Standing up and thanking Mrs. Delacour profusely, Harry began to walk to the floo. On his way pasted he smiled at Gabrielle and gave her a nod of the head in goodbye, this caused the girl to blush even deeper, and suddenly Harry began to feel a physical attraction toward her that he had not had a moment ago. As quickly as the moment came, it passed and left Harry very confused in its wake.

"What happened?" Harry asked.

Mrs. Delacour walked up to her daughter and placing her hand on her shoulders saying, "I'm sorry Harry, apparently your actions were stimulating enough to my daughter in her adolescent stage to bring about a surge in her allure. I am blocking it right now with my allure, but you really should leave. Do not take offence, I am not mad at you. But given your experiences with our race, it would probably be best if you did not visit our home again until Gabrielle finishes learning how to control her allure."

"Sorry Harry," Gabrielle said sounding desperate, "I did not try to enthrall you, I just got too embarrassed."

"It's all right Gabrielle, you can't control your powers yet I understand. Have a good rest of the day." And blushing slightly from the thoughts he had entertained while under Gabrielle's influence, he quickly flooed back to Fleur's house. Once there he wrote out a letter to the manager at the London Gringotts branch asking to set up an appointment with him at his earliest convenience at the French Gringotts branch.

That done there was nothing to do for the rest of the day but sit back and wait for the reply.

The next day Harry received a letter from Gringotts, it read,

_Mr. Potter,_

_We wish to enquire as to why you have written to us about the will of one Sirius Black. The will of the deceased was read and enacted nearly two weeks ago, we sent a letter asking you to attend as you were the primary beneficiary, however we received a letter back saying that you could not attend and you wished Headmaster Dumbledore to be there as your representative. If you wish to discuss your inheritance, I will meet with you tomorrow at 10:00, this letter is a portkey that will transport you to the lobby of the French Gringotts Branch where I will have some very pointed for you about some allegations made by Headmaster Dumbledore._

_Slipknife_

Harry was incensed, not only had Dumbledore screened his mail, but he had also passed himself off as Harry's representative to stop him from receiving his inheritance. He was so mad that he did not do anything else for the rest of the day. When Fleur got home she immediately ran into the room where Harry was, following the feelings of anger that were so great she was sure that Harry was either in a fight with Dumbledore, or received bad news and was about to blow.

As Fleur ran into the room she winced, feeling the sheer magical power coming off Harry. She didn't see Harry fighting anyone, so she assumed he had received some upsetting news.

"Harry, what's up?" Fleur asked

"I received news today that Dumbledore has once again under cut me Fleur, he screened my mail, forged a letter to Gringotts, and passed himself off as my representative to receive my inheritance from Sirius. And then failed to alert me to the fact that his will had even been read."

As the explanation came out Harry's magic began to build up to the point where Fleur was genuinely scared he would hurt her or himself by mistake. Knowing she had to do something quick to defuse the time bomb that was Harry Potter, she released her veela allure at full power. She was amazed when Harry did not go slack and start staring at her like a love struck moron instead he continued to rant at Fleur. For all the world as though she wasn't projecting an un-blockable attraction that caused even the most strong willed male to stare at her as if she were the first girl they had ever seen. The worst part was that not only was he not calming down, but his magical power was still building. All the objects in the room not bolted to the floor were levitating and flying around the room as if there was a hurricane in the room, the only difference was there was no wind. Knowing she had to distract Harry before he hurt himself, (she now knew that he would not accidentally hurt her as several objects in the room that had been flying at her had suddenly changed course and missed her by a wide margin). She could have thrown a few balls of passion fire at him, but she did not want to try attacking him when he was in this sort of mood. Moving forward she ran up to Harry who resembled a weird model of the solar system, (it even had a very accurate representation of the asteroid belt), wrapped an arm around his shoulder, pulled him so she was facing him and kissed him.

Harry was so surprised by the kiss that he immediately froze, and all the objects circling in the air dropped to the ground. Immediately Fleur felt a sense of rightness about kissing Harry, as he had been distracted by the kiss itself Harry began to feel the effects of the allure and was now responding to her kiss very affectionately. Deciding that he was sufficiently calmed down Fleur decided to draw the allure back under control. But a voice in the back of her head resisted the idea saying 'this feels too good, lets kiss for a while longer.' However the more logical part of her brain won the internal debate and she very reluctantly drew the allure back in. As soon as she had, she brushed her lips against Harry's one more time, then smiling at Harry she asked, "Better?"

Harry merely stood there looking stunned for a few seconds before blinking a few times and saying "Actually yea, I feel much calmer, thanks." Taking a deep breath, Harry said "Fleur, I apologize for my behavior, I did not mean to wreck you room, or to lay my problems on you unnecessarily. The reason that I was so mad was that Dumbledore has circumvented my godfathers will and kept me from my inheritance. Tomorrow I am going to meet Slipknife at the French Gringotts Branch to talk about the will and Dumbledore."

Fleur went pale and said "I assume that Slipknife said he would have questions for you as to some accusations from Dumbledore."

"Yes actually, how did you know?"

Fleur reached into the pocket of her robes and pulled out a newspaper before handing it to Harry she said "Harry I have to warn you, there's some pretty horrible stuff said about you in there, if you don't want to know the full story I can give you the edited version."

"I want to know everything, don't worry, and whatever Dumbledore has to say in this can't be as bad as what the Ministry printed about me two years ago."

Fleur handed Harry the paper, but it wasn't the reaction to Dumbledore's statement she feared, it was his reaction toward his friends statements that had caused her to pause.

The headline of the paper blared-

_**Defeat of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named Overshadowed by the Birth of a new Dark Lord!**_

_Less then two weeks ago, the Dark Lord He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was heroically defeated after a 3 hour long duel by the Leader of the Light Albus Dumbledore. The battle of good against evil was witnessed by Auror Tonks, Retired Auror Moody, and Dumbledore's good friend Mundungus Fletcher. They told the story of how they apparated to the stronghold of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and were immediately engaged by no less than 150 of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's best Death Eaters. After incapacitating the lot, the four proceeded into the main thrown room where the two aurors and Fletcher engaged He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's inner circle, while Dumbledore bravely took on He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named by himself. "I knew no one else was powerful enough to beat him." Dumbledore said sagely, "Rather than risk more deaths I decided to take him on myself." _

_After killing He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, Dumbledore says he had planned to apparate straight to the Ministry to inform the world of the good news; unfortunately at this point everything went wrong. It appears that Harry Potter, the supposed "Chosen One" snuck out of his place of safety and apparated illegally to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's stronghold to try to take on He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named by himself, a move that would have ended in his death. However, when he got there and saw Dumbledore about to leave he suddenly yelled out "Dumbledore, he was mine; I thought we had agreed on that old man, he was mine." And he then started to try to curse the four some before they could escape._

"_Me Mad-Eye, and Mundugus tried to hold him off, but he was too powerful." Auror Tonks said, nearly in tears, "I used to be a good friend of Harry's, but now he has gone dark, I don't want to have to kill him, but to uphold my oath as an auror if I ever see him again, I must." _

"_Several of the spells he used were quite dark" Moody commented last night during our interview, "I'm still wondering where he found the incantations for half the spells he used, there where even a few I had never heard of, but were obviously dark in intent." There are of course many dark spells that are obscure and not well known by general wizarding public simply because they serve no other purpose than to cause pain or destruction, but as Retired Auror Moody was in service to the Ministry for nearly 40 years we thought he had seen it all. Apparently Potter has found a few nasty spells that are either so dark in nature that not even He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named used them they were so heinous, or so obscure that they have not been seen in many years. In either case, after Potter disabled Dumbledore's three friends, he attacked Dumbledore himself. This proved to be too much for both of them, for although Dumbledore managed to drive him off (no mean feat after having dueled He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named for 3 hours) Potter managed to get in the last shot before apparating away and used a spell of unknown nature to shatter both of Dumbledore's kneecaps, and caused them to be irreparable by magic._

_Dumbledore had, with his last strength, revived his three friends then collapsed into unconsciousness. His friends had immediately taken him to St. Mungos where they treated him as best as they could, however he is still in the intensive care ward and is unable to walk. A source within the St. Mungos staff privately commented that unless Potter could be found to lift the spell on Dumbledore's leg, it would be quite possible that Dumbledore will never walk again._

_The public is of course warned that the fugitive Potter is now wanted by the Ministry for attempted murder, and assault on an auror. If you should see Mr. Potter do not attempt to apprehend him. He is armed not only with magic but also barbaric muggle weapons called fire-arms, also known by the slang term "guns" which do not look dangerous at first glance, but have the ability to kill you just as fast as the killing curse. If you see Potter please contact the Auror Office at once._

_For the reaction from Potter's friends Ron and Hermione turn to page 2_

_For the reaction from Potter's ex-girlfriend Ginny turn to page 3_

Harry immediately turned to page 2, Fleur could tell that what he read there did not improve his mood. By the time he had finished the story he was so breathing so hard Fleur was afraid he would hyperventilate.

"Those bastards," Harry yelled, "I stood with them all those years, and this is how they repay me, by believing everything Dumbledore said and even calling for me to turn myself in, 'It's for your own good Harry,' 'Please Harry turn yourself in, maybe we can help you.' Bullshit." Fleur flinched at the venom behind the curse. He flipped to the next page and then an interesting thing happened. All the color in Harry's face drained away and his breathing got slower, at first Fleur thought it was because he was calming down. But his face continued to get paler and paler, and his breathing got slower and slower, until Fleur was worried that he would stop breathing now rather than breath too fast. The paper slipped from Harry's nerveless fingers to the floor, but he continued to stare at the place it had been. Fleur saw his face and was immediately alarmed, his expression was completely blank. There was no emotion in his eyes at all, it was as if his mind had simply shutdown.

"Harry?" Fleur asked hesitantly, "Are you all right?"

Harry nodded dumbly and said, "I'm going to bed, goodnight," then left the room.

Fleur followed discreetly after him and saw him enter his room. 'I'll leave him alone a while' Fleur thought, 'so he can get himself under control.' Walking downstairs she began to prepare a sandwich for supper, but as she did so a feeling of unease began to grow within her that there was something wrong with Harry. 'It's alright,' she told herself 'He just needs a little time to himself to get this figured out.' She knew what had upset Harry so badly on page 3. It was Ginny Weasley's statement saying that she would not be affiliated with a "dark lord" and that she would only accept him back if he turned himself in for questioning and was found to not have done anything too "dark".

As Fleur sat down she suddenly felt a pain on her left wrist that caused her to gasp, the felt another pain on her right wrist. Immediately she felt weak and dizzy, and the feeling that Harry was in danger increased to a point that could not be ignored. Fleur stood up and ran to Harry's room, throwing open the door she screamed at the sight of Harry kneeling in a pool of his own blood, which was gushing from several slash wounds in his wrists.

Harry was sobbing as he said, "She wants me dead fine. I'll die."

Running into the room, Fleur pulled out her wand and grabbing Harry's arms began to cast healing charms on Harry's wrists. She gasped when nothing happened and Harry laughed hysterically saying, "You can't fix dark magic with common healing magic, sorry Fleur but I thought you might try that, don't worry I don't blame you. But without Ginny I don't want to live, goodbye."

All this time Harry had been getting weaker and weaker as the blood drained from his wrists. Fleur knew there was nothing she could do. You couldn't heal cuts due to sectumsempra without serious knowledge of healing spells which were completely out of her skill level. By now Harry was unconscious due to blood lose and Fleur knew that he was going to die unless she did something. She quickly ran into the bathroom and grabbed some towels that she pressed into Harry's wrists, sticking them tightly with magic to stop the blood flow. Then she ran to the fire and hurriedly throwing floo powder in the flames, stuck her head in, and called out Delacour Ancestral Home. As soon as her head stopped spinning she immediately called out in her loudest voice, "Mama, Papa, is either of you home? I have an emergency concerning Harry."

Mr. Delacour came running around the corner 30 seconds later, and out of breath said, "What is it? What is the matter?"

"Harry's hurt himself badly Papa, he saw the article in that English newspaper that Dumbledore and his friends wrote. And it hurt him very badly, just minutes ago he used powerful dark magic to slit his own wrists, please Papa, you must help him. There isn't anything I can do, I don't know the counter curse."

Mr. Delacour swore and said "I thought he might react badly to those articles, but I didn't think he would attempt suicide, quick, go back and I will come through to try to save him."

Fleur pulled her head out of the fire and then waited another 3 seconds while Mr. Delacour came literally running out of her fireplace and charged upstairs to Harry's room yelling, "Call St. Marys, tell them that they will be receiving a attempted suicide victim with magical injuries."

Fleur stuck her head back in the fire and called out "St. Marys Hospital." Before the spinning had even stopped she was yelling for an emergency healer. Somehow she could feel this whole time that Harry was getting weaker, that her binding the towels to his wrists had helped a little. But that he was still losing too much blood. Now that her father was with him she began to feel some relief on her own wrists which had stung and smarted ever since Harry had cut himself.

A healer came to the fireplace looking quite alarmed saying. "What is all the racket for? What is wrong?"

"A friend of mine has just attempted to commit suicide. He slit his wrists with magic and I couldn't heal him My father is with him now doing everything he can, but my friend is still dying, please you must come help him."

The healer paled and said, "Get out of the way; I must see the patient immediately."

Fleur pulled her head out of the flames and quickly moved out from in front of the fireplace as the healer came charging out of the floo. The healer ran upstairs following the curses from Fleur's father, Fleur ran after her.

Both of them charged into the room, the healer took one look at Harry and then pushed Mr. Delacour out of the way. Kneeling next to Harry she began to cast spell after spell on Harry's wrists, which were still slowly seeping blood. At the same time she reached into her coat and pulled out a vile of potion that she poured into Harry's mouth. At Fleur's questioning look she said, "Blood replenishing potion, now if you don't mind you and your father should leave the room so that I can work and so the other healers that are coming can get in the room and help me.

Fleur and Mr. Delacour left rather promptly, standing outside the room Fleur began to shake both with fear for Harry's life, and rage at his friends for doing this to him. 'They knew how much they meant to him, they knew the lengths he would go to for them, and they betrayed him all the same. I will make sure they will pay if it is the last thing I do.'

A short while later, Fleur saw three other healers running toward them, they backed away to give them room. A few minutes after they ran in they came back out with Harry levitated between two of the healers who were still casting spell after spell on the unconscious young man. They quickly maneuvered Harry to the floo and transported him to the hospital in a flash of flames.

The emergency healer that Fleur had contacted in the first place walked up to the Delacours and answered their unspoken plea for information. "He will live, but barely. That boy lost nearly a pint and half of blood. It's amazing we managed to avoid brain damage. Mr. Delacour, consider yourself a savior, if you had not done whatever it is you did to help the boy, he would have been permanently damaged."

"Thank you for everything Mrs…"

"Cowan."

"Thank you Mrs. Cowan, that boy owes you his life; you have helped France and the world a lot more than even you know."

With that the healer excused herself to go back to the hospital and the Delacours went up to Harry's room to clean it up. As she was cleaning up the blood, Fleur noticed that the black mark on her finger had elongated to cover nearly half the circumference of her finger. It appeared to be two parallel lines a quarter inch apart with runes inside the lines. She stared at the markings for a second then turned to her father and asked, "Dad, what is this on my finger?"

**Hope you people liked the chapter, this one is out a little late because life and compatibility issues conspired to keep this update from the internet, (author gives fate the middle finger), fortunately I was eventually successful in my efforts to upload this installment.**

**Until next time**

**Post Publishing Note: As usual, this chapter has been edited by my unofficial beta potterfanchuck, thanks man!**

**Cah11**


	5. Damage Control

**Once again thank you to all the people who left reviews for my last chapter. They were overwhelmingly positive, and for that I thank you. Thank you also for pointing out errors in my writing as they were glaringly obvious after being pointed out.**

**Disclaimer: As the word before this note implies, I do not claim ownership of Harry Potter, his universe, or any characters in his universe that appear in canon. Thank you for reading this message which accompanies every one of my chapters.**

**Recap of Chapter 4:**

"_Thank you Mrs. Cowan, that boy owes you his life; you have helped France and the world a lot more than even you know."_

_With that the healer excused herself to go back to the hospital and the Delacours went up to Harry's room to clean it up. As she was cleaning up the blood, Fleur noticed that the black mark on her finger had elongated to cover nearly half the circumference of her finger; it appeared to be two parallel lines a quarter inch apart with runes inside the lines. She stared at the markings for a second then turned to her father and asked, "Dad, what is this on my finger?" _

**Cah11 humbly presents**

**Salvation**

**Chapter 5: Damage Control**

Mr. Delacour took one look at her finger and suddenly his face went very pale, "Not here, hurry, floo, family house, NOW."

The last word was said with such forcefulness that Fleur did not even consider asking anything else. Turning around she walked to the floo, her father right behind her. As soon as they had gone through and sat down in her father's office, Fleur immediately asked, "What is it daddy, what has you so scared?"

"Fleur, what do you know of bonds? Specifically veela bonds" Mr. Delacour asked.

Fleur frowned, "Well, I know that most forms of the veela bond are basically one step up from slavery as the veela has some control, but not much. I also know that once a bond is created, it cannot be broken by anything short of one of the partners dying."

"Then you will understand what I am about to tell you." Mr. Delacour sighed and then continued. "The mark on your finger, it looks a little like a ring does it not?"

"Yes." Fleur said, surprised at how very like a ring the mark on her finger was, but no bond she had ever heard of caused a ring to form around the bonded veela's finger.

"That mark is a very specific indication of what kind of bond is forming between you, and someone else-."

But before he could go any farther Fleur was suddenly standing, red in the face and said in a quaking voice, "I'm being bonded to someone? But who, there isn't anyone that I am very close to emotionally right now, who could be bonding to me?"

"I have no idea Fleur, I was hoping that you could tell me, the very fact that you don't know who it is that is being bonded to you is more troubling to me. The bond that is being formed is a very specific bond; it can only be formed between two veela, and only two veela of a very specific lineage. What do you know of our races past Fleur?"

"Well, I know that we used to live in a feudal society ruled by a king and minor nobles before the wizards conquered us and absorbed us into there culture and their blood lines."

"Very good, now what do you know of the king of the veela?"

Fleur looked lost and said "I don't really know anything other than that he was reputed to be quite a bit more powerful than the average veela."

"Yes, the king, or one of his heirs has more veela power in one hand then your mother has in her entire body."

This caused Fleur to pale, her mother was a full blooded veela, and therefore had a tremendous amount of power, in a head on battle, her mother was worth at least 10 half blood veela, and easily 40 wizards. If the king had had more power than her mother in one hand, she could not see how the wizards had beaten them in the first place and said as much.

"Ah daughter, power can only get you so far, eventually even extreme power can fall to determination and overwhelming numbers. This is the reason that our kingdom fell, they simply overran us. Now as you can imagine the king had to have a queen did he not, after all a veela's powers are derived from two emotions, anger, and joy."

"Yes…" Fleur said hesitantly.

"Well traditionally the queen of the veela was chosen not necessarily by the king, but in some cases by magic itself. In such a scenario the first sign of the bond is an overwhelming feeling of protectiveness on the part of the queen toward the king and vice versa. The second sign of the bond is a ring like mark that begins to form around the future queen's ring finger. As her feelings for the present/future king grow more affectionate, the mark on her finger grows larger to encompass a larger circumference of the finger. The second stage of the bonding process is complete when the ring like mark stretches all the way around the future queen's finger. The third stage is the most critical stage of the bonding; this is completed by the first physical union of the two royal veela. Throughout the bonding process the present/future king and the future queen can feel each others broad emotions. After the third and final stage of the bonding the pair will know everything, no matter how intimate or embarrassing about the other bondmate. Occlumency shields are useless at hiding information from the bond mate. The bond literally binds the souls of the two people together, making what were two individual people more like one person with a personality that is a mix of the two bondmates. Don't get me wrong," Mr. Delacour said hastily at seeing Fleur's reaction to this news, "You two will still be two perfectly definable personalities, but the better aspects of your personality may leak over the bond and be transferred from you to the other person. Likewise better aspects of his personality may be copied and transferred over to you, slightly altering your personality and his to temper you and him. Say right now your mate has a short temper or a streak of vanity that most people miss, some of your patience may transfer to him to make him less impulsive and more willing to listen to advice. I know you have never been in a fight for your life outside the Triwizard Tournament. Some of his bravery and impulsiveness may transfer to you to make you more daring and more likely to make a quick lifesaving decision rather than freezing at the first sign of trouble."

"I would not freeze at the first sign of trouble." Fleur muttered.

Mr. Delacour smiled gently, "Of course not darling, I am simply using that as a hypothetical scenario of personality transfer."

"So, whether I like him or not, it doesn't matter because elemental magic itself thinks that I belong with this man, what if I don't love him?" Fleur asked.

Mr. Delacour's smile widened, "Oh don't worry about that sweetie, the bond could not have formed in the first place unless he showed interest in you, and you in him. If the present/future king found you either physically, or emotionally repulsive, or the other way around, the bond would not have formed in the first place."

Fleur relaxed slightly knowing that even if she did not love her future bondmate now, she would in the near future. The magic would not set up what was tantamount to an arranged marriage only to have it fail because one party or the other was not attracted to their bondmate, which would lead to the death of both individuals.

"Well that's good then." Said Fleur, then frowning slightly she said, "I still have no idea who the bondmate could be the only person I have spent any significant amount of time with recently is Harry. But he is not a veela, so the bond could not be coming from hi-." Suddenly Fleur stopped speaking and she got a faraway look in her eyes that let Mr. Delacour know that she was in deep thought. Coming back to Earth, Fleur asked her father urgently, "What are the three signs of the king veela bond again?"

Looking confused Mr. Delacour said, "A feeling of mutual protection, a ring like mark around the queens left ring finger, and being able to sense the other bondmates emotions, even through occlumency shields."

Fleur had gone very pale and Mr. Delacour was at first worried that his daughter was going to pass out from blood loss to the brain. He was going to suggest she lie down when she shot up out of her seat and said in a shaking voice, "We have to get to St. Marys, NOW." Not waiting for a response she shot off toward the fireplace again. Mr. Delacour had no choice but to race after her.

"Fleur, what are you talking about? Why do we have to go to the hospital now? If it's about Harry, the healer said he would live, we had nothing to worry about."

"No father, we have plenty to worry about." Fleur said shakily, "Harry is my bondmate, I don't know why I didn't see it before. But that's not the current issue, the issue is that right now I can sense Harry's intentions through the bond, and he is attempting, again, right now, to commit magical suicide.

By the time the father and daughter arrived in the right wing of the hospital, both were panting and a little sweaty. Mr. Delacour was very confused as to how a person who had never before shown any hint of veela powers was bonding to Fleur in the way he was. While Fleur was simply determined to find Harry and try to convince him not to go through with what he planned to do.

The two raced down the wing to the top security ward, (a room reserved for attempted suicide victims or high profile patients). They noticed that the wing was remarkably empty and when they got to the ward Harry was in they were alarmed to find most of the St. Marys staff in the room with no other patients anywhere in the vicinity of the ward. Running toward the door they were halted by a gentle looking healer who said, "I'm afraid I can't allow either of you into this ward, the patient in there is attempting to commit magical suicide by imploding his magical core in on itself. If he is successful, all the magic in his core, which is an immense amount, will instantly combust and cause an explosion with enough force to equal approximately fifty high powered reductor curses.*" (It must be noted that wizards do not have any concept of science as we muggles know it and therefore have no standard unit of measurement other than work that can be done by spells.)

Fleur looked at the doctor for a moment with despair on her face. then replaced the look of despair with determination once again and said, "Stand aside, the patient in there is my veela bondmate, if anyone can convince him that he is worth saving, it is me. The healers in there trying to suppress his magic will only be able to delay him, he has more magic to draw from, and then he is currently compressing right now. Meaning that he still has some doubts at to whether this is the appropriate course of action or not. If I do not go in there and persuade him that he is worth saving, then you will shortly need a new wing for this hospital."

Fleur stared at the healer for a full fifteen seconds before he nodded slightly, and lifting his wand, unlocked the door to the ward. Fleur immediately rushed in and ran to Harry's bed. She winced slightly as she felt the pull on her magic as Harry attempted to drain her magical core to aid in the compression of his own magic. As suddenly as the pulling feeling came it stopped, as though Harry had finally recognized her subconsciously and had no wish to harm her. "Why is he unconscious?" She asked a healer

"What the hell are you doing here?" The healer demanded, "This is a dangerous situation, this kid could blow at any time, and not even the strongest shield charm will save you from an explosion of this magnitude."

"I am aware of that," Fleur said icily, "I am his bondmate, and I asked why he is unconscious, only a few minutes ago I felt for him, and he was awake."

"I'm sorry Mrs.," the healer said, "We had to stun him, when we tried to intervene in his suicide attempt he began to fire wandless curses at random. Not all of them were harmless some were actually quite gray in nature, though none of them were illegal, thankfully. Rather than try to suppress his powers while also dodging curses we decided to incapacitate him to make our job a little easier."

Fleur paled. "You're idiots," she hissed, "Not only have you attacked and incapacitated a veela that is untrained in his fully developed powers, but you have attacked the one male veela in the whole world with enough power to demolish THIS WHOLE HOSPITAL!"

The healers in the room went extremely pale and some backed away, evidently not willing to find out exactly how powerful the supposed male veela in front of them was. If the girl was correct, then he had enough combustible magic to equal over five thousand reductor curses.

"Run while you can." Fleur said coldly, "Run before I wake him up, because I assure you that if you do not escape now, you never will. I imagine his anger at not having his wishes followed will override his sense of right and wrong, and I am sure that he will inadvertently kill one or more of you."

All of the healers slowly backed out of the room except for one who asked, "What about you, without us here suppressing his powers, he will blow in a matter of minutes."

"I will convince him not to go through with it." Fleur said with such conviction the healer believed it. "And if I can't, well I wouldn't be able to live without my bondmate anyway."

With that, the healer ran out of the ward and quickly pulled Mr. Delacour out of the hospital, and kept running until he was sure that the kid would not turn them all into the biggest magical pyrotechnics display in wizarding history.

Inside the ward, Fleur turned her attention to Harry, and sighing raised her wand and muttered "_Renivate._"

Immediately Harry sat up and started launching hexes in every direction except at Fleur. Stopping once he realized that their was no one but him and Fleur in the ward, Harry stopped casting and still compressing his magic, said, "Fleur get out of here, I only want my last wish of release granted. I did what I had to do, I defeated Lord Voldemort, now I just want peace and quiet, unfortunate that to get it I have to kill myself, but I don't care anymore."

"No Harry, you don't really feel that way." Fleur said sensing his emotions through the fast developing bond. "You feel betrayed by your friends, and your mentor Dumbledore. You feel like you have no one left to turn to, that you are all alone in this world. Most of all you feel abandoned by Ginny, who believes Dumbledore's lies and wants nothing to do with you, even though she knows you love her."

Harry's face had gone blank and Fleur could tell that he was erecting his occlumency shields around his mind, but true to her father's word, they did nothing to block her access to his thoughts and emotions.

"You want revenge on your betrayer Dumbledore, and you want to prove that you are a good person to everyone else, if for no other reason than to clear your name. Most of all you want to be loved again, because…" And here Fleur shuddered at the things Harry experienced at the Dursleys, some were physically painful, and all were unpleasant. "Because you never received love from your relatives, and you deserve to be loved by someone in your life before you pass on. Don't get me wrong," Fleur said as Harry opened his mouth to protest, "I'm sure you friends loved you, but the love of a friend is no where near as personal, as intimate as the love of a family member, or a lover. If you die now, you will indeed be released from the agony of mortals, but at the same time you will spend the rest of eternity as a twisted, miserable soul with no peace found on the other side. I cannot choose for you, you must decide your course for yourself, live or die, which do you choose?"

Harry had been staring blankly at her during her speech and now asked in barely more than a whisper, "Why do you care, and how can you sense my thoughts even through my occlumency shields?"

Fleur answered, "I care because I think I am coming to love you Harry, and I can pierce your shields because we are in the process of being bonded by magic."

Fleur felt a crack in Harry's mental armor appear at this news, but even without it she knew he was frighteningly angry at the news. At the last moment he got his emotions under control and asked "What do you mean a bond." He spat the last word. "I thought bonds could only be formed between humans and veela after intercourse, so that's impossible unless you managed to rape me while I slept."

Fleur was revolted that he would think that she was even capable of such a thing, but then again he did not know about the bond they shared, but soon he would.

"No Harry," Fleur said soothingly, "It is not a bond between a human male and a veela female; it is a bond between a veela male and a veela female."

Harry froze and after a few seconds asked "What do you mean between two veela, I'm not a veela."

Closing her eyes, Fleur reached for the bond and after finding it, began to feed her budding love for him and her honesty to Harry, saying, "You are veela, or at least half veela, we are unaware exactly what your blood status is, one more thing we should discover an Gringotts. However, you are not just any veela; you belong to the old royal line." Seeing Harry's look of dawning comprehension Fleur said, "Yes Harry, you are the heir to the throne of the veela."

"But I haven't shown any sign of veela powers all my life, why now?"

"I have a theory Harry, no more than that. A veela's powers are based off two basic emotions anger and joy. You never experienced joy with you relatives, and I don't think you time at Hogwarts could really be called joyful, what with someone trying to kill you every year. There was also no anger since you were beaten as a child to make you completely submissive to the will of the Dursleys. And after you left, you were schooled by Dumbledore to never let your anger get to you, which is the thing that needs to happen to allow your veela warrior powers to manifest themselves. Because none of these emotions were ever fully displayed, your veela powers never had a chance to mature."

Harry's eyes widened and he asked, "Is that why my spells always seem much stronger when I am angry, or when I am thinking of good memories, because…"

"Because the barest hint of your veela powers are showing, yes." Fleur answered, "What you achieved at the Ministry of Magic, the night you went after the prophesy is astonishing. You did something very unusual and supposedly impossible when you cast the cruciatus curse on Bellatrix, normally that spell takes years of practice, and a deep seated need to cause pain to cast. But you somehow managed to cast it on your first try using only your righteous fury. Such a thing should have required so much energy as to be impossible with out hate to back it up, but you managed it, even if the spell didn't stick."

"So what does all this mean?" Harry asked.

Fleur was pleased that Harry had stopped compressing his magic and that he had even let up on the compression a little bit.

"It means that you are not fully human, like me. It means that you are related to royalty, like me, although much more closely. It also means that once again you have someone to love and be loved by. And a hope of achieving the peace you want so badly once again, without have to end your own life. Please Harry, stay with me, I promise we will make you betrayers suffer, and we will lead the life you should have had from the beginning. The choice is yours, now choose."

Harry stared at Fleur for a full ten seconds before, suddenly he released the hold on his magical core, and all the energy seemed to leave his body at once. Barely conscious he muttered, "Stay with me, please?" before he passed out.

"Always, my love." Fleur whispered softly.

An hour latter a team of healers with some French Aurors from the French Ministry of Magic showed up outside the door of the ward Harry was sleeping in. The sight that met their eyes as they entered the room was at the same time comforting, and confusing. Some of the people present, (the healers), were glad that the patient was alright, and appeared to be resting. The rest of the people present, (the French Aurors), were confused by the sight of their bosses daughter possessively hugging The-Boy-Who-Tried-To-Kill-Himself, as some people were beginning to call him, as though she were his only security, and she would do anything to protect him.

"Miss," The Head Auror began, "I'm afraid I must ask you to step outside, you are currently hugging a deranged madman who just tried to commit one of the most violent forms of suicide know to wizard kind. For such actions we are going to have to arrest, and charge him with attempted suicide, attempted second degree murder, and attempted manslaughter."

Fleur slowly stood up and said in her coldest voice, "You will do no such thing; he was not in his right mind when he attempted those actions, besides there are mitigating factors that you are not aware of, such as him being a male veela. Besides he is so powerful, it wouldn't matter what kind of prison you tried to put him in, he would get out under his own power or with the help of the entire veela nation if need be!

"Now listen here you insolent little bitch!" The Head Auror yelled, "He is coming with us to face those charges, And even if he escapes incarceration here he is a wanted man in Britain he won't escape the charges there without at least 25 years in that hellhole Azkaban."

Exactly two seconds later, he found out why it is not a good idea to piss off a veela that is protecting her bondmate, especially when said bondmate is unconscious, and incapable of defending himself/herself.

The French Aurors looked on in terror as the expression of the beautiful women in front of them changed from cold and calculating to infuriated and determined. Immediately they noticed that her arms appeared to be sprouting feathers, her hands were now sporting inch long talons, and that the rest of her body was transforming into an avian, human hybrid. Upon completion of her transformation, two balls of passion fire formed around Fleur's hands, advancing on the Aurors, she called out in a menacing avian sounding voice, "You will not touch him. Now leave before I am forced to defend him from you."

It became apparent that the Head Auror had more brawn than brain when he reached for his wand to try to curse the half women, half bird hybrid in front of him and was hit in the chest by a very hot ball of passion fire. Said passion fire was so hot, that it instantly caused his charm protected clothing to spontaneously combust, and him to yell in pain and fright.

"Shit!" Was all he managed to say before an emergency portkey tied to his vital signs went off and transported him directly to the emergency ward of the very same hospital they were in. looking coldly at the other Aurors in attendance, Fleur in her combat form said, "Anyone else want to be reduced to ashes on this fine day?"

Immediately the rest of the Aurors backed away until they were out of the ward, casting fearful looks in Fleur's direction. Once they were out, the healers, who had all been looking resignedly at the confrontation moved forward and one began to wave her wand over Harry's body.

"Amazing," she muttered "There doesn't appear to be any damage to his system at all, that much compressed magic in one place should have left him magically scarred. But there is no sign of damage at all."

Seeing that the Aurors had left, Fleur calmed down, and as she did so, she transformed back to her full human looking form and asked with some concern, "What do you mean damage?"

"Well," The Healer began very carefully; she didn't want to end up like the Auror Fleur had set on fire. "Generally when someone tries to commit suicide in that way, they scar their magical core, that is to say that their magic will constantly leak from the core and that their power will from then on be significantly decreased. However, for some unknown reason, this does not appear to have affected Mr. Potter."

Fleur sighed in relief that her mate, and future king was not in danger. Sitting down next to the bed, she thought, 'This is all about to become much more complicated. We must make preparations to protect Harry from those who would want to harm him, and we must train him to control his veela powers now, that will defiantly be a job for Mother. But first we need to see Sirius's and the Potter's wills so we can remove all of Dumbledore's influences.'

Now that she had a goal, Fleur sat down, and grasping Harry's hand, accessed the bond, and began to project feelings of safety and love to his unconscious mind. As she did so, she thought she saw his body, for the first time since she had met him, relax completely, and knew that he had felt the feelings she was sending him, and that he felt the same way.

**Sorry that this chapter is slightly shorter than my other chapters have been, but the Gringotts part was really to long and extensive to be placed in the same chapter with this part, anyway it's been to long since I last updated, and I'm sure you are all getting a little anxious. Now that I'm on spring break, I should hopefully be able to get one more chapter out before the end of the week.**

**Post Publishing Note: Again, thank you to my unofficial beta potterfanchuck, you're a big help man!**


	6. Gringotts

**First of all I would like to apologize to all those that read my last chapter and was turned off by my sticking a portion of my new story in at the end. It has been removed from the end of the chapter and is now posted on my profile page for those that are interested in viewing what I am working on. Anyway, to the story, we go and visit Gringotts now, should be interesting.**

**Disclaimer: Because law dictates it, I must announce that I do not own Harry Potter or his universe, anyone who thinks that I do can go get themselves reduced to ashes by one of JKR's veela.**

**Recap of Chapter 5:**

_Fleur sighed in relief that her mate, and future king was not in danger. Sitting down next to the bed, she thought, 'This is all about to become much more complicated. We must make preparations to protect Harry from those who would want to harm him, and we must train him to control his veela powers now, that will defiantly be a job for Mother. But first we need to see Sirius's and the Potter's wills so we can remove all of Dumbledore's influences.'_

_Now that she had a goal, Fleur sat down, and grasping Harry's hand, accessed the bond, and began to project feelings of safety and love to his unconscious mind. As she did so, she thought she saw his body, for the first time since she had met him, relax completely, and knew that he had felt the feelings she was sending him, and that he felt the same way._

**Cah11 humbly presents**

**Salvation**

**Chapter 6: Gringotts**

It was another three days before the St. Marys staff allowed Harry to leave the hospital, in that time Harry and Fleur had lots of time to talk about the bond and their relationship. When Harry asked about the specifics of the bond Fleur told him exactly what her father told her, the harder questions came when Harry asked Fleur about his veela powers.

"Honestly Harry, I have no idea what you're true powers are, if you had been a normal male veela, you would have had the normal veela powers, a rather weak allure, but a stronger battle form, and the ability to do more magic than me. But because you are the prince, soon to be king of the veela, your powers are thought to be much stronger than a normal male veela's, and that's all your powers including the allure."

So basically, not much is known about me, and the queen correct?"

"Right, the true potential of the King was guarded jealously by the royal family to prevent other cultures from knowing exactly how powerful the veela king really was so they would remain too fearful to attack."

"A lot of good that did them in the end," Harry muttered.

"Yes, well we held out for a time, but eventually numbers will overwhelm strength if enough time and lives are spent."

After Harry was released Fleur told him that they were being moved to her parent's house as Fleur's house was not as secure, and as the future king and queen, Fleur's father felt that the Delacour Family Home would be the safest place for them at the moment.

Once there, Fleur asked Harry, "So what are you going to do about your inheritances?"

"I will have to write another letter to Slipknife and explain why I did not arrive at the agreed upon date and that I need to reschedule."

"Be careful what you write Harry, the goblin race is a prideful one that does not take kindly to being snubbed."

"I understand." Harry replied.

Quickly Harry wrote out a letter to Slipknife explaining why he was unable to attend the meeting they had setup, and that he would like to reschedule to the next earliest time at his convenience. Once the letter was written he sent it off.

"Nothing to do now but wait." Harry said.

"While we do, why don't we test the boundaries of the bond as it currently stands?" Fleur suggested, "If we get used to being in each others heads right now while the connection is limited, then we won't have to worry so much about sensory overload when the bond is completed."

"Sounds like a good idea." Harry said. "Now how do we do this, is it some kind of meditation thing?"

"Well, it works best if we are in physical contact, the more contact in the beginning, the easier it becomes, eventually we will get used to accessing the bond and will be able to do it from long distances, even if we are on opposite sides of the planet."

"Ok." Harry said

Taking his hand, Fleur led Harry into the sitting room toward one of the smaller chairs in the room. As she did Harry began to get a little red in the face and said, "Fleur, that chair is not really big enough for the two of us, shouldn't we sit in one of the couches or something?"

Fleur was slightly amused by his shyness and said, "Come now Harry, am I really that ugly that you would not allow your bondmate to sit on your lap?"

Harry's blush immediately deepened and he said, "I don't think you are ugly, I'm sorry, I don't have any experience with women."

Fleur chuckled lightly and leading him the rest of the way over to the chair, sat him down then sat down in his lap, making sure to arrange herself so that she was sitting perpendicular to him and could lean on him sideways allowing him to feel the curves of her body. She heard Harry gulp slightly as she rested her body on his and Fleur smiled slightly up at him before saying, "Ok now that we have physical contact, here is what we must do to access the bond, first close your eyes and breathe in and out slowly to center your mind, do this now."

Harry closed his eyes and did as instructed. Once he was as centered as he thought he was likely to get he murmured, "Ok now what?"

"Now reach down for your magic and 'feel' around until you find a tendril that seems to branch out from the rest of your body, once you find it, follow it to its source and then stop." Fleur whispered back not wanting to disturb him or make the process more difficult.

Harry explored his magic for a bit trying to find a tendril that branched off toward Fleur, he knew that if he found the outside boundary of his magical core he would eventually find the bond, but it seemed to take an inordinate amount of time to find the boundary of his core.

After searching for nearly ten minutes Fleur wondered whether he would find it on his own or not, she didn't want to have to find it for him; she wanted him to solve his own problems dealing with the bond as much as possible. After fifteen minutes Fleur had almost run out of patience and was going to locate the bond for him when he said "Ah ha!" and Fleur felt a presence that she knew to be Harry's travel across the bond until it reached the outskirts of her mind then stopped. Immediately after he found the connection his body relaxed and went slack, as though he had fallen into a deep sleep. Not at all worried, Fleur reached for her own magic and feeling the tendril that was the bond, slipped into the bond as well.

As he entered the bond he thought it was like being on a bridge between two islands, only it was a bridge between their minds. As he grew used to the feeling of the bond he noticed that the part of Fleur that was in the connection was hanging back slightly, closer to her side of the bond then the middle where Harry was. Nonplused, Harry asked, "Fleur, why are you hanging back?" Harry noticed he didn't really verbalize his question so much as think it to Fleur, and she answered back in a likewise fashion.

"I want to make sure that you are ready for the next parts that are coming, I didn't want to immediately overwhelm you with different sensations. Do you think you are ready?"

Harry thought about it for a moment and then said, "Yes."

The first sensation Harry felt was fullness, as though he had tried to absorb too much information at once, he supposed with two minds in one place this was unsurprising. The next thin he knew, Harry was experiencing thoughts and feelings that were not his own; it was all a little overwhelming being able to experience multiple emotions at the same time.

Fleur, sensing that Harry was being overwhelmed, withdrew from the bond and helped him also withdraw back to his own mind. When they were both back in their own heads, Harry said, "Wow, that was a lot more vivid then I thought it would be; it was like our minds melded for a moment and we were experiencing each others emotions."

"That is exactly what happened, don't worry about being unable to stay in the bond with me for very long, the pressure of having two minds occupy one figurative space takes some getting used to."

After another two hours of talking about and, (to a lesser degree than what they started out with), experiencing the bond there was a crack in the room which caused Fleur to fall out of Harry's lap in surprise. Harry blushed slightly when he saw that her skit had ridden up a little exposing her thighs, but not really enough to be considered 'indecent'. He was brought back to reality when Fleur, (who had pulled her skirt back down), handed him a letter written to him by Gringotts, it was very short and to the point.

_Mr. Potter,_

_If it would please you to actually show up this time I will meet with you at 8:30 tomorrow morning, do not be late._

_Slipknife_

Harry sighed, he knew that his absence the last time he had called for a meeting had most likely offended the goblin, he knew he would have to be on time, and if they made him wait for the appointment, then he would have to wait.

"What do you think?" Harry asked Fleur.

"I think that the situation with the goblins is still salvageable as long as we spin the story of your injuries in such a way that they do not appear to be self inflicted."

"Why would that matter?"

"Because, the goblins are a very war like race, they see any kind of suicide as dishonorable, and the mark of a weak individual who cannot be trusted with the smallest tasks and responsibilities. Rather we should make it seem as though the scars on your wrists were received during spell practice, goblins see such scars as badges of honor that proved that you suffered to attain what you know, and thus learned by their ways, a trial by fire type of concept."

Harry looked a little skeptical and said, "I'm not sure lying to the goblins is the best course of action, if they were to find out, would that not make me appear even weaker to them?"

"Only if they find out, and believe me, father has been working like a madman containing the rumors and stories at the ministry, nothing has found its way to the papers yet, after all, some countries," here Fleur looked at Harry amusedly, "actually have a handle on their newspapers to make sure that their stories are more fact then fiction. So far no one has anything substantial, and because of the vows of silence that our healers take to preserve patient confidentiality, they can't say anything to anyone outside of me, you, and my family. The aurors that showed up trying to arrest you were a little difficult to curtail, but after given proper 'motivation' they decided to take a vow of silence on the matter."

Harry was stunned at the thoroughness of Fleur's father; he had successfully contained a rumor that would have found its way into the Daily Prophet within ten minutes of Harry being brought to the hospital if this were Britain.

"Thanks Fleur, and thank your father and mother for me, without them I would be both houseless, and a celebrity outcast."

"No problem mate of mine."

Harry blushed slightly at the way Fleur answered him, damn he was doing that a lot lately, and asked, "Anything else I should avoid saying?"

"Well, you should compose your speech to them so that you do not come across as a winy little kid who got cheated out of some candy by his older brother, make sure that you present your case about the inheritances in a mature and accurate fashion; if we can pull this off we may even turn the goblins to our side, they hate Dumbledore as much as the next wizard, and they become especially angry when someone manages to circumvent the law and tarnish their reputation. Remember, reputation is everything to a goblin and after what Dumbledore has done I imagine that the goblins will work very hard to please you to gain your trust back."

"So basically you're asking me to use them?" Harry asked incensed.

"I'm suggesting that you use each other, neither we (the veela) nor the goblins can hold off the humans on our own, they have us too marginalized. We have plenty of warriors, but no capita, they have plenty of money but few warriors and even fewer weapons, you need all three if this comes to war. I am simply suggesting that we use each other to our mutual benefit."

"Alright," Harry sighed, "I don't like it though, one slip up and the goblins will turn on us and we will rip each other to pieces."

"So we need to make sure that no one slips up." Fleur sounded more confident then Harry was that this could be accomplished.

The next day found Harry and Fleur at Gringotts at 8:15 AM. Harry was slightly more tired then Fleur as he was not used to getting up that early. Despite the early hour, there were already 15 or so couples in the bank talking to teller goblins and generally walking between the main doors, the desk, and the doors that lead to the vaults. Harry and Fleur had come that morning with another couple of veela who were acting as body guards. As he was the veela prince, Mr. Delacour had wanted Harry to have up to six body guards, but Harry protested saying he did not need protecting and that body guards would actually make him stand out. They had argued for a few tense minutes before they decided on a compromise of two male veela of exceptional magical strength. The two body guards were ordered to be discrete unless Harry actually came under attack, then they were ordered to protect Harry and Fleur at all costs.

Making his way to the desk, Harry stopped in front of a free teller and said, "Excuse me, I'm Harry Potter, and I have an appointment with Slipknife at 8:30."

The goblin replied gruffly, "And is it 8:30 yet?"

Harry looked at his watch, "No, it is 8:20."

"Then the manager is not ready to see you yet, please wait until your appointment time, then come back and request your meeting."

As they walked away Fleur was fuming, "What was that about? We showed up didn't we, it may have been a little early, but it's not like it is the end of the day, it's still too early for the manager to have anything that necessitates his long term attention and would prevent him from seeing us immediately."

"It's all right Fleur," Harry said "they are just making us wait so they can make a silent statement to us, and that is, 'never snub a goblin, especially if that goblin is the bank manager.'"

Fleur sighed, "Your right, I know, it's just that I thought they would understand that, given your frame of mind last week, the reason you missed the appointment was unavoidable."

"Ah but that's the downside of not letting the media know of my injuries. No one else knows either, not even the goblins it seems."

Ten minutes later a goblin stood up and walked to Harry and Fleur saying "Mr. Potter?"

"Yes?" Harry asked.

"The manager will see you now, please come this way."

Harry followed the goblin from the seats to the back behind the desk, the two body guards, who had been shadowing the couple and trying to remain inconspicuous positioned themselves near the desk so they could get into the back if they needed to and then stood their to wait for as long as necessary.

In the back, Harry and Fleur were lead into a grandly decorated room, filled with ceremonial weapons and pieces of armor. At the far end of the room was a huge mahogany desk with a single relatively tall goblin sitting behind it. The goblin scowled at Harry and Fleur as they approached, Harry guessed that the goblin was Slipknife, and also guessed that the goblin did not like being told to leave London to see the same customer twice in as many weeks.

Once they reached the desk the teller goblin bowed the three of them and left. Once the door had closed Slipknife said, "Harry Potter, now that you are here, finally, I suppose we can begin. You wanted to see your godfather's will but did not come to the public will reading sending a proxy, why?"

Harry took a deep breath and said, "Slipknife, you must understand that I never received any correspondence from Gringotts, ever. I have never received a bank statement, or even an invitation to see my parents wills. The last time I was at Gringotts in fact was almost four years ago."

Slipknife frowned, "You have never received any bank notices, but I have copies right here with you signature on them, one notice every six months since you turned 11 years old, and all of them are signed."

Harry was furious, Fleur was too, "May we see a copy of a Harry's first notice Slipknife?"

The goblin scowled but reached in and pulled the notice from the bottom and handed it to Fleur.

Taking it, Fleur laid the bank notice face up and pointing to the signature on the notice asked, "Harry, did you know how to write in cursive the summer when you turned eleven?"

Harry looked at the signature too and replied, "No, I did not start writing cursive until the middle of my first year of Hogwarts, and then I only learned because Snape kept taking points off my essays because they were not written that particular way. This signature has been forged by someone; my first guess would be Dumbledore."

Slipknife stared at Harry and Fleur and said, "This is preposterous, it is true that all your mail has been being sent to Dumbledore, who was your magical guardian until you were emancipated, but our letters are spelled so they cannot be opened by anyone other than the rightful recipient, they are spelled to only open for a person with a specific magical signature. Dumbledore could not have simply opened the letters, signed them and then sent them back, it is not possible."

Harry stood up and growled, "Enough, if you cannot believe me on my word alone, then how about this. I Harry Potter swear on my life and my magic that I did not learn to write in cursive until December of my first year at Hogwarts, furthermore, I have never received post from Gringotts bank until I received the letter from Slipknife regarding my godfathers will so mote be it." Harry was surrounded by a white glow as the oath was completed.

When he did not keel over and die after the glow faded Slipknife slumped back onto his chair and looking devastated said, "Mr. Potter, first of all accept my apology for not believing you, a banker, and especially a goblin must always be on the lookout for scams, economic traps, and corruption, unfortunately it appears that someone, and I agree it is most likely Dumbledore, has been screening your mail, and keeping you from your business and your inheritances. Now that you are emancipated this is no longer a problem. The bigger problem is what Dumbledore has done since you have left Britain. Dumbledore recently filed a claim in the wizengamot to have your trust vault, the Black Vault, and the Potter Vault seized by the ministry on account of you being a dark wizard and the next runner up for the title of Dark Lord. The issue has not been voted on yet, but if you want to do anything it must happen soon if you are to save your wealth and inheritance. My suggestion is to have the three vaults combined and then moved here to the Paris Branch so that it is out of Britain and therefore beyond the British Ministries jurisdiction."

Harry looked alarmed and asked, "How long do you think we have?"

"No more than three days, the only reason the debate has went on this long is because the pure blood elitists in the wizengamot see the danger in the precedent of a Gringotts Vault being seized, and they do not like the implications."

"Alright Slipknife, I will follow your advice, please combine the three vaults and have the assets moved here to the Paris branch."

"We will start immediately," and after writing instructions on a piece of parchment, Sliphook waved his hand and the message disappeared. "Now that that is taken care of, I assume you wish to see your parents' and godfathers' wills."

"Yes, please."

Moving over to the cabinet in the room, Slipknife removed a shallow stone basin and brought it over to the table. It was a pensieve.

"Your parents and godfather left their wills in the form of pensieve memories, that way there was no way for them to be faked or altered after the fact." Slipknife said, then grabbing one of the two vials that had been on the desk when Harry and Fleur walked in Slipknife asked, "Is it alright if we start with your parents will? It has been out of sight too long, and I am sure you wish to here the final words of your parents."

Harry's voice cracked slightly as he said, "Proceed."

Slipknife pulled the stopper out of the vial and dumped the memory into the pensieve, then swirled a finger in the silvery liquid until an image of Lily and James appeared. Standing with their feet still in the bowl, Lily and James began to speak alternatively, each making sure the other gave equal time. Lily spoke first.

"This is the last will and testament of ones Lily Potter, and James Potter written on the 28th of October, 1981."

"_To Remus Lupin, one of my dearest friends, I leave the sum of 2 million galleons with the hope that you will buy yourself some decent cloths and get back on your feet, you're a smart person Moony, and all your talent is going to waste over petty prejudices._"

"To Sirius Black, we leave our trunk code labeled (anemogram of marauder), you know what to do with this stuff Sirius, make sure Harry knows of his father's legacy."

"_To Peter Pettigrew,_" Here James' expression became frosty, "_We leave nothing but a question, was it worth it, you spineless scumbag? Was your life really worth selling out your best friends? You may live on Peter, but simply living is not the hard part, the hard part is learning to live with yourself. Think about it._"

Here both Lily and James spoke simultaneously, "**Everything else we leave to our son Harry James Potter, all other moneys, properties, and holdings shall be transferred to Harry's direct control the moment he comes of age, or is emancipated.**" They paused, and Lily seemed to be looking directly at Harry, as if the memory could actually see him. "Harry, your father and I are sorry we cannot be there for you, no matter what happens, if you are seeing this because we died in Voldemort's attack, know IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT! You did not ask to be a prophesized savior, and I would not change anything about our life, the small amount of time we were your parents were the best of my life, this is mommy signing off." Lily then stepped back into the background.

"_And now son it is my turn._" James Potter moved forward and also seemed to stare directly at Harry. "_Harry, there is something you must know about my side of the family, I have Veela blood in my veins, it is likely that you do as well. However you are not just any veela, you are directly descended from the veela royal blood line. This does not mean that you will necessarily ascend to the throne, magic picks the next veela king, and it is prophesized that magic will only pick the next veela ruler during a time of great darkness and upheaval._" James looked at Harry with a pained expression, "_I pray that you will not be the one magic chooses, the veela's power is waning, the species itself is on the brink of extinction. But as a precaution, in case you are deemed the one, we are mandating that in the event of our untimely death you be sent to France to be raised by a veela family, preferably the Delacours or another family of noble veela blood to be raised and trained in your powers. Now about your blood status, I am ¾ veela, while Lily is pure human, which would make you 3/8ths veela. If you are chosen as king you will need to find a queen, once you have fully bonded to her, you magic will automatically alter you blood status to match that physically and genetically of a pure blooded veela male with the full might of the veela king. Now go, I pray you will not have this task set before you, but somehow I know that you will receive this fate. Goodbye son._" And with that, the memory of Lily and James sank back into the pensieve and out of sight.

Harry sat on the chair in front of the desk, tears dripping down his face, thinking of how his parents must have loved him. Loved him enough that they set up contingency plans in case things that were very uncertain came to pass, the remark that Lily made about Harry not being responsible for their deaths had almost broken him. How could she say that, when if he had never been born, they would not have died? As if sensing his thoughts, which Harry supposed she could, Fleur said, "Harry, if you have never been born, Voldemort would have survived, would have overthrown the British Ministry, would have kept on killing until their was no one left to oppose him, and then the dark would have truly won." Placing her hand on his face and turning his head so she could look into his eyes she said, "And if you had never been born, I would not have a mate right now, a mate that I love, and want to spend the rest of my days with. I would have possibly grown old alone, which is the greatest curse for a veela, us being very emotional creatures, you have done so much good Harry, I will not let you sell yourself short, you, are, a, hero." Then fleur leaned forward and kissed Harry, putting all her love and passion into the kiss, as well as feeding her feelings for him though the bond so he knew, for certain, that she loved him with all her heart, and that she would never abandon him.

After Harry had gotten control over his emotions he and Fleur parted from their kiss and looking around saw Slipknife, who had a touched look on his face that Harry had never seen on a goblin before. As soon as Harry notice, the goblin crafted his expression to one of impassivity, but Harry knew that it was a mask he was wearing to conceal his true emotions, after all, part of the goblin warrior creed is that a warrior does not cry.

"Mr. Potter, if you are ready? We will begin the reading of Sirius's will." Harry waved his hand in assent. Drawing the memory of Lily and James out of the pensieve, Slipknife grasped the other bottle and poured the memory into the pensieve. Once again swirling one finger in the pensieve's depths, Slipknife caused the memory of Sirius Black to rise out of the pensieve.

"I, Sirius Black being of sound mind and body do hereby declare this my final will and testament on the 30th of April 1996. There, now the stupid legal crap is done and taken care of, on to the real reason this will was made. To Remus Lupin, I leave six sickles and a curse, not only for abandoning Harry in that muggle home for fifteen years to be physically and mentally abused, but for going along with Dumbledore's plan to use Harry to get what he wants before killing him. I didn't want to believe it, hell I didn't ever believe it until now, but maybe there is a reason werewolves are considered 'dark creatures'."

"To the Weasleys excluding Fred, George, Bill, Charlie, and Ron, I leave you in the same boat as Remus for planning to get Ginny knocked up by Harry so that she has his kid and inherits all his money if Dumbledore's plan works. There is a fine line between poverty and insane desperation, and you just crossed that line."

"To the Weasleys mentioned in the exclusion list above, Hermione, Neville, and Luna, I leave the sum of 3 million galleons in return for a magical oath to always stick by Harry's side, no matter what happens between Harry and Dumbledore, Harry has the right in this, for once The Headmaster does not."

"All other assets be they liquid, property, and the title of Lord Black, I leave to my godson Harry Potter, Harry there are a few Potter Family heirlooms stored in a certain trunk that I have been meaning to give you, but never found the time. It's all yours. And Harry one more thing; if you die before the age of 100 and I find you somewhere up here, I am so going to kick your ass. This is Sirius Black, the last of the faithful Marauders, saying bye for now." And again the image sank back into the stone basin and vanished.

Harry was tearful again after the reading of Sirius's will, but they were tears of mirth, his godfather had really stuck to form and thrown some jokes in there, (so like Sirius) to break the almost tangible tension in the room that accompanies almost every will reading. On top of that, Sirius it seemed had seen all of this coming and had planned for it, placing stipulations that could not be avoided and singling out the people who were personally responsible, and the greatest snub of all was that Dumbledore was not even mentioned in the will

'That must be why he forged my signature to attend the public reading.' Harry thought, 'Because he was not a benefactor, he would not have been able to attend otherwise.'

Then another thought gripped Harry, now that he was Lord Black, what would Fleur think, would she now just want him for his title, or would she still love him for being him? His answer was given to him almost immediately as Fleur hugged him and said, "Harry, we need to work on your self-esteem, of course I will still love you for you, being king of the veela means so much more to me than being a 'Lord'."

Harry smiled his thanks and told Slipknife, "I believe we are done here for now, when can we expect my funds to be transferred to the branch here in Paris?"

"The process is already under way Mr. Potter." Slipknife said, rather proudly, by tomorrow at closing time, all of the contents of the vaults belonging to you will have been consolidated and moved to this location. Which reminds me, here is your new key for the vault we are assigning you, the number is 6045. It is one of the high security vaults at the bottom of this establishment which is heavily warded and well guarded."

"Guarded by what exactly?" Harry asked, curious.

Slipknife smiled dangerously and replied, "A basilisk."

Fleur gasped and Harry gaped at the goblin. "How in the world do we control a basilisk so we can get to our vault?" Harry demanded

Slipknife reached into his desk and held out two pairs of sunglasses to Harry and Fleur saying, "When you go to visit your vault, wear the glasses, they are charmed to act like a one way mirror that lets you see out, but reflects the snake's deadly gaze away from you. And don't worry about having to fight it; the basilisk is contained within a barred cage made of charmed stone. It will only open if there is a being that is not you or anyone you have keyed to the wards trying to get into your vault."

Harry breathed a sigh of relief, he had already fought a 40 foot basilisk once, he was not anxious to have a repeat experience.

"Thank you Slipknife, and now we really must be going." Harry said

"I understand Mr. Potter, if you need anything else, or have questions, do not hesitate to write to me, just send your post directly to me, no point possibly endangering your security because of potential leaks in my bank."

Harry thanked Slipknife once again and then, leaning on each other, Harry and Fleur left the bank and apperated to The Delacour Ancestral Home, their body guards close behind.

**Well everyone there you have it, sorry this chapter was so long in the writing, but I had a major case of writers block and once I got over that, life became very hectic what with me graduating high school, finding a job, just a whole plethora of other things. However the school year is coming to an end and summer is on it's way, I hope that I will have more time to write (when I'm not working that is).**

**For those that may disagree with me bashing on Lupin, it is not that I completely hate the character, but let's face it, with his connections to Dumbledore, and the teaching staff of Hogwarts, he could have found out easily enough were Harry was and the type of conditions he was living in. I am not saying that he will be bashed in all of my fics, (assuming I write more), but Lupin will not be seen in a good light during this fic.**

**Please review and remember, let's keep it relevant and constructive people.**

**Until next time,**

**Cah11**


	7. Training

**Hello again, to start off, for those who think that Fleur and Harry's relationship is advancing a little fast, the truth is you're right, my only defense is that the bond they share is very comprehensive, imagine sharing another persons thoughts and feelings, it is one of the few ways that you could know someone completely and utterly, which is the foundation to any lasting relationship, also I know that I marked the genre for this story as a romance/adventure, and I will change it if you reviewers really feel it necessary, but I want to focus on the adventure part, it gave me two genre tabs, so I put in the what I thought best described the story, and now on to the chapter.**

**Disclaimer: After 6 chapters of reading these things, if you still think that I own Harry Potter or his universe, you truly are a moron, and I order you to go read law books until your head explodes.**

**Recap of Chapter 6:**

"_Thank you Slipknife, and now we really must be going." Harry said_

"_I understand Mr. Potter, if you need anything else, or have questions, do not hesitate to write to me, just send your post directly to me, no point possibly endangering your security because of potential leaks in my bank."_

_Harry thanked Slipknife once again and then, leaning on each other, Harry and Fleur left the bank and apperated to The Delacour Ancestral Home, their body guards close behind._

**Cah11 humbly presents**

**Salvation**

**Chapter 7: Training**

As Harry and Fleur walked back into the Delacour House, Harry brought up the question that had been bugging him ever since he had discovered his true heritage. "Fleur, if I am king of the veela, and no one really knows the full extent of my powers, how am I supposed to learn what the full extent of my powers are? How am I supposed to be trained when we have no idea what I can be trained in?"

"Honestly I don't know Harry," Fleur said with a sad smile, "My plan is to train you in all the usual areas a young veela would train in, and then work from there to find out what you are good at, not good at, and see if we can accidentally unlock some of your lesser known powers."

"And who pray tell would want to undertake this dangerous business of training a full powered veela who has no idea what he is doing?"

"Why me and my daughter will." came a voice from behind them.

Fleur jumped in surprise and said, "Mother, don't scare me like that!"

Harry did not even flinch simply turned and frowned at Mrs. Delacour and said, "I don't want to accidentally hurt you or Fleur for that matter, if we don't know the extent of my power, how can I be sure that I will not accidentally harm you?"

"You can be sure because you love Fleur, and Fleur loves me, and you are feeling protective of me, so therefore through extension you must love me in some sort of capacity. Thus when you are practicing you will be careful and will hold back your powers unless I tell you otherwise. Now I will start training you tonight at the same time as when I am training Gabrielle, you will train near her, but I will ask you to do simpler things then her at first, I expect you to surpass her in skill within a month, then your primary tutor will become Fleur with me simply fulfilling a role as observer to make sure you don't try anything above your skill and most of all so you stay on task, it will be difficult at times as you will have to practice the more…archaic powers of the veela as well as the other powers, but I don't think we will have too many instances beyond possibly the first time."

Fleur shivered remembering the time she spent practicing the more, as her mother described them, "archaic" powers of the veela, namely the veela allure, and the empathy ability to allow them to sense emotions and broad feeling. This had consisted of going to the nearest muggle village at night and "kidnapping" muggle teenagers to be used as test subjects, Fleur had always thought it was wrong, like a perverted form of torture of the mind, to be a hormonal teenager tied to a chair and then subjected to an allure that made the projector appear the most beautiful creature in existence and not being able to do anything about it. The same boy as never used more than once, and after the session his memory was modified so he would not remember the event, but Fleur still felt guilty that to practice their powers they had to use unwilling subjects who had no choice.

"Why do I have to practice on Fleur?" Harry asked blushing, "I don't want to accidentally enthrall her and then have to figure out how to turn it off before she jumps me as it were."

Fleur blushed too and said, "Believe me Harry the alternative would sit even worse with you. Don't worry, I expect there will be accidents, and if there is, well that's why my mother is there, to stop us before anything to…extracurricular happens."

Harry blushed harder and acquiesced saying, "Alright, but I don't like it, we'll be messing with things that no one in living memory has seen before, except maybe Flamel, and he's finally dead too."

"Alright, it's settled then, your training will start at 7:00 tonight out in the backyard, you and Fleur will meet me and Gabrielle back there and I will start you on basic veela magic and the general uses. Once we are finished there, we will move on to learning advanced veela powers and finer control over the basic ones. After that is where the guess work starts, a normal veela cannot transform and hold their allure at the same time, it just requires too much concentration to transform, but it is rumored that the veela king could maintain the allure and transform at the same time. We will find out if this and many other things are true, or merely false reports used to boost the kings reputations among the magical community."

As it was only 10:00 in the morning, Harry and Fleur had a lot of time to kill before Harry's first lesson, therefore they decided to take a walk around the Delacour estate and then have a picnic lunch somewhere on the property that Fleur assured Harry was the perfect place for a picnic. As they walked around, Fleur asked Harry to recount his adventures at Hogwarts to her, and Harry did, although slightly resignedly, he did not want Fleur's pity for all the things that had happened to him, it just was not needed, or so he thought.

Harry told the story of his first year, he told Fleur about arriving at Hogwarts, the excitement and wonder it had evoked in him, and then the adventure and terror as he fought a troll, saved a dragon, unwittingly came face to face with Voldemort's servant in the forbidden forest, and then came face to face with Voldemort himself soon there after. Hel told her of the conversation he had with Quill and with Voldemort and the final confrontation over the Sorcerers Stone. Harry then launched into the story of his second year, describing how he discovered he was a parslemouth, describing the voices he would hear through the walls, and the slew of attacks that occurred, in the end he tried to give a very watered down version of what happened in the Chamber of Secrets to Fleur but she could sense through the bond that he was holding back on her and called him out on it. In the end he told her the full story second by second, and by the end Fleur was so pale, Harry was afraid she was going to pass out.

"You killed an ancient, hundred foot basilisk in your second year with nothing but a phoenix, a sword, and an old hat, that's insane, how did you survive?" Fleur asked.

"I don't really know, luck I guess, I did get stabbed by one of the snakes fangs though. The only reason I survived that is because Dumbledore's phoenix healed me with his tears and kept the poison from killing me." Harry then proceeded to show Fleur the large, circular scar on his arm from the fang.

"That's amazing." Fleur whispered. Then she put her arms around Harry and hugged him while he began to tell her of his other adventures at Hogwarts.

It was now 7:00 pm and Harry, Fleur, Gabrielle, and Mrs. Delacour were standing in an open field that was on the Delacour property. Mrs. Delacour had started with Gabrielle first and had told her to begin forming fireballs in her hands and to toss them at targets that reformed themselves after every hit. Then she moved over to Harry and said, "Ok, so, the first thing you must know about veela is that our powers are heavily fueled by our emotions, unlike occlumancy, which requires a clear and empty mind, veela powers require the opposite, you must immerse yourself in you emotions to properly access your powers. The first thing we are going to try is your allure, to use this power you must immerse yourself in happy memories."

"Like when I cast the patronus charm?" Harry asked.

"Yes like that." Mrs. Delacour replied delighted that Harry already had a basis for the concept to work with. "Now there are two types of allure, there is the general wide area allure which will enthrall all females within you general vicinity, and there is the focused allure that only affects an individual that you are focusing on. We will start with the general allure as that will take less concentration and will be easier to do."

"Ok." Harry replied and with that Harry began to draw up memories form his past that he remembered fondly, the times he spent with Ron and Hermione at Hogwarts, just hanging out, the time he spent with Sirius, the memory of his family staring back at him through the Mirror of Erised. As he did so a soft golden glow began to emanate from Harry and immediately Mrs. Delacour, Fleur, and Gabrielle were hit by a wall of allure so powerful that they knew that they would only have a few minutes to get Harry to real his powers back in before he overcame their power and they were enthralled. Harry's body seemed to glow with an unearthly light, a wind known only to him began to blow his long hair around his face, and every feature seemed to become more defined, as though his body were trying to advertise itself.

"Harry stop, stop!" Mrs. Delacour said trying to avoid the thoughts running through her head as Harry's power slowly overcame hers'. It was amazing, he had the most powerful allure she had ever seen, and this was coming form a woman who was a pure blooded veela. Mrs. Delacour looked around; she could tell that both her daughters had already succumbed to the allures influence, they had both stopped moving and were simply staring at Harry jaws slack, their eyes running up and down his body, as though he was the first mature male either of them had ever seen. Immediately Mrs. Delacour knew she had to get the situation in hand, her own powers were fighting a losing battle with Harry's and she only had a few moments before she succumbed completely, which might lead to some awkward activities that she really did not want to be involved in, nor did she want her youngest daughter participating.

Quickly she ran up to Harry and grabbing his shoulders yelled "Harry, STOP!"

"Wha-what, what happened?" Harry asked opening his eyes and looking confused, "Did it work? Did my allure work?"

"Oh, it works," Mrs. Delacour assured Harry, "In fact it works so well you completely enthralled both my daughters in seconds after you started projecting it, and nearly had me enthralled before you reeled it back in. Harry this is significant, as a pure blooded veela, I can say that that is the most powerful allure I have ever seen or experienced, you could enthrall anyone given enough time, even a master occlumense would eventually fall to your allure,"

Harry looked over at Fleur and was embarrassed to see that she was openly ogling his body, when she noticed that he had noticed she suddenly seemed to come back to herself and both Harry and Fleur blushed crimson. Looking over Harry noticed that Gabrielle was having a similar reaction as Fleur, with similar results as well.

Harry quickly changed the subject to break the awkward silence, "Mrs. Delacour I have a question about the allure." And after receiving permission to ask, Harry went on, "The three veela that enthralled me at the night club in Paris, from what Fleur has told me, they were not especially powerful veela, how is it then that they were able to bypass my occlumency shields and enthrall me?"

Mrs. Delacour thought about it for a moment then said, "Well for a start they had the advantage of you not knowing they were veela, you had nothing but your passive shields up yes?"

"Yea." Harry said looking confused.

"Then that was part of the problem, The veela allure can be blocked completely as you know, but the full shield has to be raised to be effective, if the passive shield is the only thing up, then you will block one part of the allure, but not the other."

"Wait; there are two parts to the allure?" Harry asked surprised.

"Yes," Mrs. Delacour said, "There is of course the mental part, which influences your brain directly and changes your perceptions of the veela enthralling you, so that they appear to be the most beautiful being on Earth, regardless of any other females nearby, however there is a second part to the allure, a part that hardly anyone outside of the veela community knows about. The second part of the allure affects the body directly, causing it to produce increased amounts of endorphins, a chemical that you body produces naturally when something brings you pleasure, basically they make you feel happy. The allure also causes you body to become much more sensitive to stimulation of your erogenous zones, and makes you more sensitive to visual stimulation. They also had the advantage of numbers, three veela, even if their powers are week, are still capable of enthralling a strong occlumense if they work together as those three were. And finally they were smart, I'm guessing they did not just walk up to you and slam you with the allure right away, correct?"

"Yes…" Harry said slowly.

"Well then they obviously caught you first by introducing the allure a little at a time, this is a tactic that we veela have learned is very effective against master occlumancers, essentially they fed you bits of the allure at a time so you would not notice it until it was too late and you were enthralled. In the beginning I imagine you thought it was just a natural reaction to three beautiful women, correct."

Harry blushed and said, "Yea, they seemed normal enough, they didn't appear to have silver hair, so I thought they weren't veela, just three hot girls."

Mrs. Delacour smiled knowingly, "They probably used glamour charms to hide their hair color, I imagine that by the time you realized they were veela, your conscious mind was beyond caring, correct?" Harry's even deeper blush was all the answer she needed.

"Anyway, back to training, the next power we are going to test is your battle form. All veela have a battle from that allows them to deploy fireballs and flight in defense and attack, all veela, without exception, take the crossed form of some species of bird, and human. What cross you turn into varies depending on the individuals character, and their power level, no one is quite sure anymore what form the king took, but it is said that his form was uplifting to any allied with the veela, and very disheartening to any who were his foes. There is even a story, some call it a myth of a battle before the fall, where we veela clashed with a wizard army for ten days before the king could arrive to the field, by that time our numbers had been severely reduced, they outnumbered us a hundred to one. The king showed up suddenly and at the sight of so many of his brethren dead became so enraged that he transformed into a wizard's true nightmare, and a veela's true vision simultaneously. The story ends with us winning the battle because of the king's battle form; this is the power you supposedly wield."

Harry stared at her for a moment, sighed, and then said, "I understand, how do I transform?"

Mrs. Delacour's face was a stone mask as she said, "You must delve into your darkest memories, your moments of greatest hurt, and bring then to the fore."

Harry closed his eyes, and began to dip into his darkest memories and secrets. Soon his face was twisted in unendurable agony as he thought of his parents dying, remembered the death of his godfather, thought of Dumbledore's and his friend's betrayals. Mrs. Delacour watched uneasily as Harry began to glow once again, but this time he did not glow with a soft golden light, but instead a blood red aura began to surround him, soon the aura had coalesced into dancing orange and red flames, his arms and torso became wreathed in fire, he still retained his skin, the fire did not burn him, but the grass under his feet began to smolder where he stood. Blood red feathers began to emerge from his arms and torso as well; they also began to sprout up his neck, and down the backs of his legs, giving him the look of a raptor, beautiful, but deadly.

Within a minute the transformation was complete, and Harry opened his eyes, and seeing them caused the three Delacours to stumble back and gasp. Harry's eyes were the color of deepest forest green, and they were so intense they seemed to be staring into your soul, judging you, whether you were worthy to remain standing, or if you should be burned to ash.

At the Delacours awed but frightened looks, Harry immediately lost his hold on the dark memories, and transformed back into his usual appearance. "What is it?" he asked, looking scared, "Whatever it is, I'm sorry, I won't do it again, please forgive me."

Mrs. Delacour looked awed and whispered, "So the legends were true, the phoenix is the very embodiment of hope for the veela, and a vision of terror for wizards."

Fleur looked at her mother searchingly and asked "Huh?"

Mrs. Delacour looked at her daughter then back at Harry, her face still betraying her astonishment. "There have long been myths told that the veela were first created by the phoenix's in a long and complicated story involving a female phoenix held against her will by an evil wizard, a male phoenix willing to do anything to get his mate back, and a wizarding king willing to help the phoenix in any way he could. To make a long story short, they saved the female phoenix, and despite the fact that the wizard refused to accept a reward, the phoenixes would not let him go without payment. So rather than try to give him something that he could just give away, for instance money, or the like, they gave him the power over fire, and the ability to influence women, as the king was unmarried, but desperately wanted a wife. This plan of theirs was two fold, it would pay off a magical debt that the phoenixes owed the wizard, that way if the king died, but he had an heir, the heir could not suddenly show up and demand payment for the magical debt, the male phoenix was not willing to have gone to all the trouble of saving his mate only to potentially lose her again for all eternity. The second part was that phoenixes are highly magical creatures as you know, and they foresaw the rise of the muggles from the dark ages to the digital age. They knew that they did not reproduce rapidly enough to keep up with the humans, in open war the phoenixes, despite all their power, would be even worse off then us, as a female phoenix only lays one egg every 300 years or so. Their current world population is estimated at around 2000 at most, and I mean at most. Therefore, they decided to create a link to this new race of wizard that they dubbed "veela" by giving the king what amounts to an animagous form that essentially is a phoenix."

Harry stumbled and sat down as he heard this, then suddenly sprang back up and said, "Wait, you said that phoenixes were the embodiment of fear for wizard's right?"

"That is correct Harry that is one reason why there are so few phoenixes, when they approach wizards, they begin to feel very uneasy, and if they hear the phoenixes song it is often enough to give them panic attacks and to loose all sense."

"They why does Dumbledore have a phoenix that he claims is his familiar?" Harry mused.

Mrs. Delacours face drained of all color as she asked, "Dumbledore has a phoenix?"

Harry looked surprised, "Yea, it sits in his office most of the time, the only times I have ever seen it leave is the time when it came to help me in the Chamber of Secrets, and the time it helped Dumbledore escape imprisonment at the hands of the ministry, why?"

Mrs. Delacour turned and began to run toward the house, Harry Fleur, and Gabrielle looked at each other and then began to sprint after her. As they caught up Mrs. Delacour said, "Harry, a phoenix would never willingly bond with a wizard, after the story of the creation of the veela, the phoenixes found pure blooded wizards to be to be too repulsive to be around, if this phoenix has been around Dumbledore as long as you say he has, then Dumbledore must have found a way to bind the phoenixes soul to his, that's probably why he has lived as long as he has, the phoenix is immortal in terms of time, which means Dumbledore would be equally immortal. The only reason I can think of that Dumbledore would willingly put up with a creature that naturally causes discomfort to wizards is if he found a way to deaden its effects against him, or if he plans to perform a little known and truly dark ritual that requires the participation of a phoenix. Either way, this is not good.

Dumbledore was impatient, he was healing it was true, a miracle some of the healers said, it had been predicted that he would never walk again due to the damage the two bullets had caused to his knees, but Dumbledore had been apperating in and out of the ward to a muggle hospital to undergo surgery the muggle way. It was very painful, and was slower than magic normally was, but in this case there was no other option as the magic negating charm on the bullets were blocking any spells that may have helped from repairing his knees.

Because he obviously couldn't go anywhere, Dumbledore had had a lot of time to think, about how he was to take control of Wizarding Britain, and what to do about Harry Potter. Dumbledore had been very craft and managed to push a bill through the wizerngamot that gave it the power to confiscate the contents of a wizard's Gringotts vaults if that wizard could be proven to be a practitioner of the dark arts, something that was instrumental to his plan to eventually take over the world. Not just The Wizarding World, but the WHOLE WORLD, Dumbledore's face acquired a dreamy expression as he imagined being the one that united the world under one government, a government lead by him. It would be perfect, there would be no more wasteful wars, there would be no more hunger problems, and most importantly, wizards would not have to hide their existence from the muggles.

A healer walked into the ward and approached the foot of his bed. Flipping though a chart in his hands the healer said, "Well Mr. Dumbledore, I see that you rate of healing is staying fairly constant, at this rate, you should be completely healed before the beginning of the new school term."

Dumbledore smiled, perfect. "That's good to hear," Dumbledore said, "I would hate to miss the opening feast." Indeed he would, the first step of his plan required his presence at the opening feast, nonattendance was not an option, if he wasn't there, his plan would fall apart; therefore it was a good thing that he was going to be healed by then, no thanks to the St. Mungos staff.

"You know you really are quite lucky," the healer remarked, "Whatever spell Mr. Potter used on you was quite powerful, and I'm surprised your ambient magic has been able to slowly fight his off to repair your leg."

'Yes, Harry's method of dealing with me was rather brilliant, he used muggle technology, something most wizards, including me, often underestimate to dispatch Tom, and to incapacitate me. It's good that I was planning to soon perform that ritual that will rid me of that bothersome pidgin, I will also need to devise a spell that will protect me from this weapon muggles call a 'gun'.'

With that thought Dumbledore leaned back in bed and, closing his eyes ran through lists of calculations in his head and then drafted arithmancy equations that would produce a spell that would shield him from spells and from solid objects.

Fawkes closed his eyes, he knew his time was coming; soon Dumbledore would no longer need him and would perform the deed he had bound him for for so long. He had hoped that the hatchling Potter would be able to help him, but the boy was not knowledgeable in the area of phoenixes and therefore knew nothing of Fawkes enslavement. It had broken Fawkes heart to witness the hatchling be subjected to tests and humiliations at the hands of Dumbledore and his 'relatives' and not be able to do anything to help the young prince, he had been able to help him in the hatchlings second year because Dumbledore's magic had truly allowed him to, Dumbledore had not wanted him dead, not yet, and had thus allowed Fawkes to intervene, to a certain extent. But Fawkes knew that there was next to no chance of Harry rescuing him in time, not unless he can across someone who still remembered the old myths, and he had the intelligence to put two and two together, the boy was intelligent, but not the sharpest mind in the school. No, Fawkes had resigned himself to death, and with that death, eternal soul enslavement, one that would have no end, for once Dumbledore fused their souls, he could never, ever truly die.

**Once again thank you to all those people who reviewed the previous chapter, remember you are the people who are my inspiration to keep writing. Sorry for the slightly smaller chapter than usual, only about 4,600 words, but I thought it would be a good idea to end it there on a cliff-hanger, So what do you think, will Harry save Fawkes in time, or will Dumbledore surpass Voldemort and become truly immortal, tune in for the next update to find out!**

**Cah11**


	8. Rescue Mission

**Hey people, sorry for the long wait on this update, but life has been rather busy for me of late, also I had a rather unfortunate attack of the lazies. I can kick this thing, and then I should be able to get back on my regular schedule of one update about every two weeks. Be warned that end of July I will disappear for about two weeks to Virginia for the Boy Scout National Jamboree, so I will be late with that update for sure. ;) **

**Disclaimer: I don't own the Harry Potter Universe, any who doubt me at this point are either paranoid beyond reason or just stupid, you make the call.**

**Recap of Chapter ****7****:**

_Mrs. Delacour turned and began to run toward the house, Harry, Fleur, and Gabrielle looked at each other and then began to sprint after her. As they caught up Mrs. Delacour said, "Harry, a phoenix would never willingly bond with a wizard, after the story of the creation of the veela, the phoenixes found pure blooded wizards to be to be too repulsive to be around, if this phoenix has been around Dumbledore as long as you say he has, then Dumbledore must have found a way to bind the phoenixes soul to his, that's probably why he has lived as long as he has, the phoenix is immortal in terms of time, which means Dumbledore would be equally immortal. The only reason I can think of that Dumbledore would willingly put up with a creature that naturally causes discomfort to wizards is if he found a way to deaden its effects against him, or if he plans to perform a little known and truly dark ritual that requires the participation of a phoenix. Either way, this is not good._

**Cah11 humbly presents**

**Salvation**

**Chapter 8: Rescue Mission**

As soon as Mr. Delacour had heard the news of an enslaved phoenix he had gone on a rampage, trying to apparate from the house to Hogwarts, forgetting that not only could he not apparate out of his own home because of wards, but that Hogwarts was so heavily warded that had he made it out of his home, he would have been sent right back with fewer limbs. Suffice it to say it took ten minutes, and a blast of veela allure from his wife to calm him down. Once he had, he immediately began to floo call the strongest male veela he knew. Soon four other men had joined Harry and Mr. Delacour in the dining room to plan the jail break.

"Well, we could just try walking through the front door." One of the veela, a man named Fredrick suggested.

"No, you couldn't," Harry replied, "Dumbledore isn't stupid, he will have modified the wards around Hogwarts to detect 'dark creatures' that enter the school in response to the threat Voldemort posed, and I doubt he will have lifted the wards because I survived his attempted assassination."

"We could fly in." Another of the veela, a man named Pierre said.

"Again, no." Harry replied "Last year Dumbledore modified the wards to allow flying inside the school grounds, but to repel anyone who tried to fly over the wall boundaries, no entry or exit by broom is possible."

"Then what do you suggest Mr. Potter?" Mr. Delacour asked, "We can't do nothing, if my wife is correct, then the poor phoenix doesn't have much time left before Dumbledore uses it to surpass even Voldemort in the quest for immortality."

Harry bit his lip, and replied "Now, it's risky, but as far as I can see, it's the safest way to save Fawkes, and still have an escape plan. Here's what we do, you four take Mrs. Delacour to Knockturn Alley in London, once there, make your way to a shop called Borgon and Burks, and have Mrs. Delacour enthrall Mr. Borgon. Then make your way to the back of the shop where you will find a cabinet, it looks like a normal cabinet, but in reality it is a vanishing cabinet, a dimensional gateway between the one in Borgon and Burks, and one that is conveniently positioned in Hogwarts. It's currently hidden in the Room of Requirement, so you should be able to get out the other side without being noticed."

Draco tried to use the same cabinet in the Room of Requirement last year to bring Death Eaters into Hogwarts, and he did manage to fix it, but Ron, Ginny, and Neville were waiting for them, and with a little felix felisis to help them out, incapacitated the whole lot of them.

Mr. Delacour thought about the plan from multiple angles and came to the conclusion that it was the best plan they were likely to come up with, however Harry had not told them what his part was going to be. Mr. Delacour decided to find out.

"Now Harry, you said that only we five would be going to Borgon and Burks, where do you plan to be?"

Harry shifted in his seat uncomfortably and said, "I will apparate directly to Hogwarts, and act as a distraction to any teachers and possibly Dumbledore to give you time to escape." You could have heard a pin drop in the room.

"Let me get this straight," Fredrick said "You, the magical heir to the veela throne, plan to act as a distraction, by attacking the castle itself, and then dueling every teacher there, and possibly Dumbledore if he shows up, all by yourself… ARE YOU INSANE BOY" the last part was shouted with such force that Harry visibly slunk down into his seat in fear.

Suddenly Fredrick found himself picked up and thrown across the room, as he tried to get up, he felt his assailant pick him up by his neck and throw him up against the wall so his feet dangled, not touching the floor. Clearing his head, Fredrick saw a truly terrifying sight, Mr. Delacour, whom he had been friends with for many years, was the one holding him against the wall by his throat, and had his talons ready to disembowel him if he made the wrong move. His daughter, Fleur was standing on the other side of her father with a ball of passion fire held in each hand, ready to reduce Fredrick to ash in defense of her mate.

"You will not speak to your prince in such a manner; you will not disbelieve what he can do until you have seen the measure of power he can bring to bear on those that upset him. In fact, the only reason you are not dead yet, is because the boy was so physiologically damaged by his relatives that he is afraid of adults who lose their temper. You see those scars?" Fleur walked over to Harry, pulling the neck his shirt down, exposing several long, thin, white lines that crisscrossed Harry's neck. "Those scars are not from his fight with Voldemort, they are from his former relatives. He experienced nothing but neglect and violence under their care, and thus whenever he causes an adult to get angry, he is terrified. Please do not shout at him again, or I will be forced to hurt you."

Fredrick nodded slowly, and Mr. Delacour released his neck.

"Very well Harry." Mr. Delacour said, "We will follow your plan, as it is the most likely to succeed, when do we act?"

"As soon as possible, we want to make the attempt while Dumbledore is still incapacitated in St. Mungos, there is a slight possibility that he may show up, as I am sure that he has his office warded, and you will need to break those to enter. If he does show up we will have the upper hand however, as he will be unable to walk, and will be restricted to magical transport."

"Alright then, we leave tomorrow." Mr. Delacour said. After that the meeting broke up and everyone went their separate ways to think about their part of the plan.

_Next day, 9:00am_

To say that Harry was nervous was an understatement, Mr. Delacour, Mrs. Delacour, and their four friends had left ten minutes ago to complete the first objective of their mission, which was to secure the vanishing cabinet at Borgin and Burks. After the cabinet was secure, Mr. Delacour would let Harry know by messaging him with a patronus, after which, Harry would apparate to Hogwarts and cause as much panic and confusions as possible, without actually hurting anyone.

'I hope I'm up to this, I haven't had any real training with my combat form, so I'm going to be fighting completely on instinct.' Harry thought uneasily.

Ten minutes later, Mr. Delacours' parrot patronus flew in through the wards and stopped in front of Harry. Opening its mouth, Mr. Delacours' voice issued from it. "We have secured the vanishing cabinet, and are about to go through into this 'Room of Requirement', we will proceed with the rescue once you have given the signal that you are in position."

'Show time.' Harry thought resignedly, then he apparate to Hogsmeade.

As soon as Harry appeared in Hogsmeade, he pulled up the hood of his cloak, and began to walk away from the village to the entrance of the school. Upon arrival, he noticed that the walls were still as heavily warded and the gate as heavily locked as it was during Voldemort's reign.

'Either no one bothered to take them off, or someone here is very paranoid about the school being broken into when the Dark Lord is dead.' Harry thought.

Raising his wand, Harry shot red sparks into the air, high enough to be visible to everyone in the castle, including Mr. Delacour in the Room of Requirement, and then prepared himself to wait for the teachers' response. Ten minutes later, Professors McGonagall, Flitwick, and Snape walked out of the school and began to move toward Harry at the gate. Thinking quickly, Harry cast a charm on his throat that would cause his voice to sound flat and toneless, so they couldn't identify him by his voice. As soon as the foursome came into comfortable speaking distance, McGonagall called out, "Stranger, Lower your hood, and state your name and business, or turn around and go back the way you came."

"I will reveal my identity, if the four of you take an oath not to attack unless I attack you first." Harry's toneless, and completely unidentifiable voice said.

"Why should we?" Snape sneered. "If you want an oath not to attack, then you are probably some dumb Death Eater who thinks that they can get in the first shot before we can retaliate due to the oath you want us to swear."

"Please, this is a matter of life and death for all four of you, and many other people around the world just hear what I have to say, and then I will be on my way."

"I Professor McGonagall swear not to attack the stranger in front of me until he has delivered his message, or unless he attacks me first. So mote be it."

Snape blanched at her actions and said, "McGonagall, have you lost your mind, he could be a Death Eater…"

"I Professor Flitwick swear not to attack the stranger in front of me until he has delivered his message, or unless he attacks me first. So mote be it."

Snape stared white faced and turned to the hooded individual and said. "I will swear to nothing, I personally don't want to be attacked with no chance to defend myself."

"Then you forfeit the right to hear this information." Harry said with a shrug. Leveling his wand at the potions master, Harry cast a nonverbal _mufliarto._

Snape covered his ears as the spell hit him and he suddenly became deaf. Trying to pull his wand to perform the counter jinx, he found that the wand was in the strangers hand, having been summoned their by the person in question. Pocketing the wand the person slowly lowered his hood. McGonagall and Flitwick gasped as they realized it was Harry standing before them at the gates of Hogwarts. Their first reactions were to pull their wands and attempt to incapacitate Harry on Dumbledore's information; however the magically binding oaths they had sworn prevented the action.

"What I am about to tell you two is crucial, not only to you, but to everything and everyone you care about." Harry said. "Dumbledore is manipulating you, I am not dark. In fact I am the furthest thing from dark. Dumbledore is dark, after I defeated Tom, he showed up with Alastor, Tonks, and Mundungus. After realizing that I was still alive, he tried to capture me, when that didn't work, he tried to manipulate me. After that I…Incapacitated him. Dumbledore is evil, and will throw away your lives for small gains for himself; his ultimate plan is to rule Britain, perhaps the world. Come back with me, and I will show you what he put me through the last few weeks. Or stay here, and run the risk of being burned by passion fire."

"Harry we know that what you say are lies." McGonagall said, "I wish you would just give us a chance, we can help you, we might even be able to bring you back to the light, not every wizard that has fallen to the dark has stayed there. Many repented of their sins and rejoined normal society, and became perfectly loyal citizens."

"Ah Minerva I am sad to see that he has corrupted you so." Harry said with a sad look on his face. "And what of you Filius? What is your decision?"

I too will say with Dumbledore." Flitwick said. "What Dumbledore claims is too credible to be entirely made up, and he has had plenty of chances to take the ministers' post at the ministry and always declined, why would he want something like that now? No, You are the liar here Potter, now surrender, you cannot out duel Minerva and I at the same time, because we taught you everything you know, but not everything we know."

I wish your answer was different." Harry said, a pained look on his face, "However…" Suddenly several things happened at one.

There was a loud shriek from the direction of the castle, and a loud bang. Knowing what the sound meant, the three professors turned to the castle and began to run to it.

'Someone is trying to forcibly steal Dumbledore's phoenix.' Flitwick thought enraged that someone would dare steal another's familiar. 'I will enjoy capturing the one who is doing this.' When they got to Dumbledore's office they found it empty, no thieves, no phoenix.

"Spread out," McGonagall said, "We must find them, they can't have escaped, they would have to go through the front doors, and I sealed them on my way in, they will be trapped somewhere in the castle. Find the other teachers and ghosts, and tell them to look as well."

Slowly the castle was searched from top to bottom over the course of the next two days, but there was found neither hide nor hair of the thieves; it was as if they vanished without a trace. As to the matter of Snapes' wand, they found it that first day exactly where Harry had been standing, lying in the middle of the street. The meeting was never mentioned by the three to another soul, after all what teacher would admit to having been seemingly duped by their own student.

As soon as Harry arrived back at the Delacour house, we was assaulted by a silver haired missile that hugged him, and showed his face with kisses. As soon as Fleur had calmed down enough to stop the flurry of lips on his face, Harry asked in a slightly dazed tone? "What was that for?"

"Harry, phoenixes are very important to us veela, they are our creators, or so the legends say. Also, it is no mean feat to distract three professors, one of which is at least partially tide to the wards, from a theft that is happening right under their noses."

"That reminds me, how is Fawkes? Did you manage to free him?" Harry asked nervously.

"Yes Harry," Mr. Delacour said warmly, "We did, the process took a lot of energy form the phoenix, but he will be fine, in fact I believe he wanted to say something to you quickly, I will take you to him." So Harry and Fleur followed Mr. Delacour to a room in the top floor of Delacour manor and once there, Mr. Delacour opened the door and gestured them in.

Once inside, they found the phoenix sitting on a golden perch, much like the one Dumbledore had had, but this one didn't have bars around it. As soon as they entered, they felt an utterly alien presence touch their minds. They were about to throw up their most powerful shields, but noticed the presence wasn't trying to invade their minds, it was merely touching them to let them know it was there and wanted to speak with them. Slowly they lowered their shields, and allowed the presence to enter their minds. Once it had, a voice, so beautiful that Harry was sure it belonged to an angel said in his head, "Thank you for saving me." At this point, Harry realized that this must be Fawkes's voice.

"Err, you're welcome."

"In return for saving me, I would like to offer you something."

"Please." Harry said blushing "You don't have to give me anything, I was just happy to help."

"No, please, hear me out." Fawkes responded, looking Harry directly in the eye. "I want to bond with you as your familiar. There are several advantages, apart from Phoenix Flash, and healing tears, I can also provide protection. After all, phoenixes are the original fire elementals, every other elemental creature in the magical world was created by some variant of the phoenix, wizards themselves where created by the high phoenixes, before the created betrayed the creators. Now no high phoenixes are left, and the rest on my race will join them, unless you win the coming war."

"War, what do you mean war?" Harry asked, scared.

"Harry Potter, there is a great war coming, one that will make World Wars one and two look like two hatchlings fighting over a worm. There will be three factions, the light, the dark, and then you, and the other magical races. The light will be so weak, they will not even be a factor in the fight, the brunt of the darks attack will be met by you, and you must win. If you don't, the world will fall to darkness, and all will be lost. I want to help you. Please accept my gift."

Harry at first looked uncertain then turned to Fleur and asked "What do you think?"

"Do it." Fleur advised, "The political boast alone would be worth it, veela were going to love you for saving a phoenix, but they will be almost fanatical in their trust of you after learning you **bonded **with a phoenix.

Harry sighed then said, "Alright, how do we do this?"

"Simply reach out and touch my body." Fawkes said, "And the bond will be complete. Do not worry; you will not be burnt by the flames."

Reaching his hand out Harry lay his hand on the phoenix's back and gently stroked it. Immediately Harry felt the bond begin to form, and Fawkes' presence settle into his mind. Once the sensation was over, Harry looked up and grinned. "Wow!" He said, "With that kind of power boost, Dumbledore is in for a surprise.

**What will Dumbledore's reaction be to the fact that his immortal slave has been set free, wait for the next chapter to find out!**

**Please read and review, I'm not a review whore, but it's nice to know what people think, I wasn't overly pleased about how this chapter turned out, but I needed to get something out there after so long, if you find anything you think needs changing, pm me the line and what you think it should be changed to, and I shall take it under advisement.**

**Till next time,**

**Cah11**


	9. Union

**Readers, sorry I have not updated in over a month, but I just got back from National Jamboree, and then the next day was informed by my parents that my dog had lost the use of his back legs and was being put down that day, so I'm a bit of a mess emotionally right now, sorry if the content seems substandard, but creativity is being a little overshadowed by grief at this point.**

**Disclaimer: This is getting rather tedious, but it is still necessary to say, I DON'T OWN HP, HIS UNIVERSE OR THE CHARACTERS, thank you.**

**WARNING: This chapter contains one of the few sex scenes I will write about in detail, I will only write smut in detail in chapters where the scene is storyline important, like the one coming up. There is a reason the story is rated M, keep that in mind. Also be aware that this is my first serious attempt at a smut scene (I don't count the rape scene found in my other story because it wasn't all that detailed). So if you find I did something wrong or you thought the scene just sucked, don't flame me please, just review with suggestions on how to make the scene better.**

**Recap of Chapter 8:**

_Harry sighed then said, "Alright, how do we do this?"_

"_Simply reach out and touch my body." Fawkes said, "And the bond will be complete. Do not worry; you will not be burnt by the flames."_

_Reaching his hand out Harry lay his hand on the phoenix's back and gently stroked it. Immediately Harry felt the bond begin to form, and Fawkes' presence settle into his mind. Once the sensation was over, Harry looked up and grinned. "Wow!" He said, "With that kind of power boost, Dumbledore is in for a surprise._

**Cah11 humbly presents**

**Salvation**

**Chapter 9: Union**

As Harry walked from the room with Fawkes on his shoulder, Mrs. Delacour ran up and said, "Harry, what's up with Fawkes, His magic levels suddenly spiked and then reduced slightly, but his magical core is still more highly charged than an unbounded phoenix's core should be…" Then Mrs. Delacour saw Fawkes on Harry shoulder. Immediately her hands went to her mouth, and a smile appeared on her face. "He chose to bond with you Harry?"

"It would appear that way." Harry said smiling at the phoenix affectionately.

"Then Harry, I give you my blessing to finish the bond with my daughter." Mrs. Delacour said.

Fleur blushed and simply asked, "When?"

"As soon as possible, there is a clan meeting in two days time. All the clan leaders from around the world will be there, it would be the opportune time to reveal Harry's status as king to the clan leaders."

"What if they don't believe that he is even veela, let alone king? Harry is not unknown among the veela, even those that live as we used to in mini-kingdoms have at least heard his name and that he is human. You know they will attack first and ask questions later if they believe our species secrets are in danger of being revealed to a human."

"Don't worry Fleur, if they challenge Harry, then he will merely have to release his allure to prove he is veela, and the power of it will be enough to convince even the most skeptical that he is the king." With that Mrs. Delacour left with a knowing look at Fleur.

Fleur looked at Harry slyly, and, her blush fading said "What say we complete the bond right now? I mean, my mom did say we needed to do it as soon as possible, and once we bond, you will be considered the king, and a full blooded veela."

Harry gulped and said, "Fleur…I haven't ever been in a relationship that progressed beyond kissing before, so I'm not sure how this works…"

Fleur smiled and said, "Don't worry Harry, you're at least 3/8ths veela, and to veela, sex comes naturally. Just let your instincts take over, and let me give as much as take." The last part was added because Fleur was sure that judging by Harry's over all character; he would try to pleasure her to insanity without receiving anything himself.

Harry blushed harder and whispered, "Alright"

Fleur took pity on him, and grabbing his arm led him up to her bedroom. Once they entered, Fleur cast silencing wards, and then led Harry to the bed on the far side of the room. Pushing Harry down onto the mattress Fleur took a few steps back and then reaching for the hem of her shirt, began to pull it up over her head and off revealing a pure white bra that concealed full magnificent breasts. Moving her hands back down her body, she began to grind her hips slightly; her hands trailing down, down, down until they reached the button of her jeans which she unbuttoned and then unzipped the zipper. Her jeans fell the floor in a pile, which she stepped out of, and then began to walk toward Harry in nothing but her white bra, and matching panties.

When Harry had realized what Fleur was doing he had become aroused very quickly, his problem down south had only been aggravated even more as she took off each article of clothing and then began to walk toward him.

Once Fleur was standing in front of Harry, she put her hand on his chest and began to gently push until he was laying on his back, then she straddled his legs and leaning over engaged Harry in what started as a very gentle kiss. At this point Fleur began to emit her allure, not at full power, or even half, not even enough to enthrall Harry, Just enough to increase the sensations he would be receiving from her kisses and caresses.

Soon Harry had decided to just let go, and let instinct take over. Deepening the kiss, he gently licked Fleur lips with his tongue, asking for entrance, which she granted. Harry moaned as Fleur's hands began to wander over his body, pushing his shirt up to his neck, unbuttoning, and unzipping his pants, and caressing every inch of flesh she could. Fleur moaned back as Harry's tongue slipped into her mouth and began to run over her own tongue, and her teeth, making a mental map of her entire mouth. His hands had also begun to wander over her mostly nude body; they had started on her back, one going north, the other going south. The one headed up caressed her neck, her head, and then gently cupped a breast which he began to rub and caress with just his fingertips, the hand headed down trailed down her spine, sending shivers through her, then the hand grasped and began to gently rub her firm arse.

Fleur moaned and broke the kiss panting. At first Harry was concerned that he was over stimulating her, but his gut told him that she was fine and that he was doing exactly what she wanted him to. Soon his mouth was busy again sucking on her neck and earlobe while his one hand began to rub Fleur sensitive nipples, while the other hand had moved from her bum to the other side of her body. Cupping her sex, he began to run his finger over her slit through her soaked panties. Fleur groaned and because of the amount of pleasure she was receiving said in French, "Harry, svp m'aiment."

Oddly enough, even though Harry had never learned French, he knew what she was asking and moved to grant her request immediately. Moving his hand from her breast he quickly pushed his pants to the floor and then pushed down his boxers, revealing his respectable length of 5 inches. While not the largest cock Fleur had ever seen, it still ranked in her top thirty. Moving atop Fleur, Harry looked directly into her eyes and then reaching down, unsnapped her bra and pushed down her panties. Looking back into her eyes, Harry slowly maneuvered himself to her pussy, and letting his instincts take over again, began to push into her.

The feelings were indescribable, it felt like is cock was being massaged by a velvety soft, warm sleeve; and she was so tight that Harry was moaning before he had even pushed half way in. Fleur wasn't hanging on much better, she had of course had sex before, (certain yearly rituals in the veela's religion demanded it), but the rapidly expanding bond caused the amount of pleasure from the penetration to increase exponentially until she was moaning loudly with each breath. With an exceptionally loud moan from both of them, Harry bottomed out in Fleur, and leaning over, Harry immediately fixed his lips on one of her nipples and began to suckle it while running his tongue around the very edge of it, causing Fleur to clench the sheets of her bed in her white fisted hands. Soon Harry was moving in and out of her in a slow but building rhythm, building their pleasure to an ecstasy thought to only be attainable by those who found nirvana.

Fleur was almost screaming by now every time Harry pushed into her, and she managed to stutter out, "Harry, I-I'm going to cu-cum."

"Me too." Harry moaned out as he began to move back and forth between her two nipples with his mouth. Harry was now moving in and out of Fleur at a furious pace, sometimes withdrawing all the way out before slamming back in, (due to his veela instincts he never misses). Soon enough Harry could feel the crest of his orgasm coming and could tell that Fleur was close as well. Slamming in one more time, Harry sucked extra hard on Fleur's nipple while whipping his tongue over it like crazy, causing Fleur to tense and then erupt in a high pitch scream that marked her orgasm. This resulted in Harry being pushed over the edge as Fleur's pussy began to clench around his cock like a vise, sucking him in and milking his balls of all the cum they had to offer.

As they came, a golden glow surrounded the pair and magic began to radiate out from them like light from a flare. As Harry spurted into Fleur, his body began to change in obvious ways, and other more subtle ways. He became slightly taller, growing to 6' 1" in height, his muscles became a little more defined, and most of the scar tissue on his body faded away to be replaced with normal, health skin. The most obvious change to Fleur at that time was when his cock, which was still buried in her to the hilt, suddenly grew another 2 inches in length, causing the head of his cock to hit the back of her vagina, setting off another orgasm. Finally when their orgasms had finished, and Harry and Fleur were lying next to each other recovering, Fleur took a good look at Harry's new appearance and decided that she loved it just as much, if not more so than his old look. Then the allure hit her, and she was enthralled almost immediately. Moaning, Fleur began to rock on Harry again, the allure making her want to bring him as much pleasure as possible, while she herself became more aroused with each passing second. Harry moaned in pleasure and surprisingly, pain as Fleur moved under him, stimulating his over sensitive organ. Reaching down he placed his hands of Fleur's hips and held her still, settling atop her and said tiredly.

"Fleur, please, I'm too sensitive and tired right now. Please let's just lay here and rest for a while."

Fleur moaned and said, "But Harry, it feels so good, for me and you, let's do it again, please?"

Harry was about to respond a little angrily, as his organ was being stimulated to the point where it was painful, when he realized that he was projecting his allure and that Fleur could literally not stop herself. With much concentration, Harry drew his allure back in and then said, "Fleur, please can we just rest?"

Fleur had been about to push Harry back into her when his allure lifted and she came back to her right mind, realizing that her actions were not pleasurable to Harry at all, but actually quite the opposite, she quickly pulled him out of her and sounding concerned asked, "Harry are you ok? I didn't hurt you did I?

"Don't worry Fleur, it wasn't your fault, I accidentally released my allure and enthralled you, sorry bout that. Why are you staring at me?"

Fleur had taken a better look at Harry; this more through look caused her mouth to fall open in shock, and her to become so hot and bothered that she almost jumped Harry again right there. There was no other word for it, Harry was HOT! His facial features had become a little less angular, and looked younger, His hair still was unkempt, but it had a look as if it were windswept, as though he had just gotten off a broom. His muscles were more noticeable, he was certainly no body builder, but he had a six pack, and the kind of muscles that show others you're strong, but don't necessary advertise the fact.

"Wow Harry, you changed quite a bit, why don't you go look in my mirror to see what the transformation from part veela to full veela has done to you?"

Standing up, Harry made his way over to Fleur's mirror, and took a good look at his new appearance. He was surprised by the number of changes that had been made to his body. Harry spent 5 solid minutes examining his new body before walking back over to Fleur, who was still on the bed, and lay down next to her, whapping his arms around her and pulling her close. As he did so, a wave of exhaustion rolled over the couple, and they pulled each other closer, both of them falling asleep whapped around one another, as the bond began the process of merging their minds, and indeed, their souls.

The next time Harry awoke, he could tell it was still quite early, and looking at the small clock on the bedside table, saw that it was only 2 in the morning. Shifting slightly, Harry turned to look at his newly betrothed wife, who he had spooned up against and entangled their legs rather intimately. Immediately Harry decided then and there that this is how he wanted to wake up for the rest of his life. Smiling at Fleur, Harry noticed that Fleur had woken with all his shifting around in their embrace. "Sorry I woke you love" Harry apologized

'_No problem Dear.'_ Said a voice that sounded like Fleur's in Harry's head.

"What?" Harry exclaimed as he felt a presence that felt a lot like what he remembered Fleur's was like moving through his mind, gently accessing various memories, and experiences of his. Fleur felt fear, and pride as she saw from Harry's perspective all the tasks and trials that Harry had had to face at Hogwarts. She was disgusted at the pitiful defenses that Dumbledore set up around the Sorcerers Stone in his first year. _'He made the traps so easy that three FIRST YEARS made it through to the end, how did he expect such trash to keep a dark lord out?'_ Then she felt surprise, and a lot of pride as she saw Voldemort offer Harry the chance to join him, and achieve the ultimate power of bringing people back from the dead. _'I'm impressed Harry, even at the thought of all that power, you stayed strong and did what was right, not everyone could have made that choice, I'm not sure I would have at that age if I were in your position.'_

Next she witnessed his second year, and saw how Harry was shunned and whispered about by the rest of the school about being the heir of Slytherin, all because he was able to speak parsletongue. _'Are the wizards and witches of Britain really that easy to convince about such nonsense, how could you have been the heir of Slytherin, you had no motive, and you were only a second year, Riddle himself admitted that it took him the better part of five years to find the chamber, and he WAS the legitimate heir of Slytherin.' _Her disbelief quickly devolved to anger as she saw the unmasking of the defense against the dark arts teacher Lockhart, and how they had been taught by a fraud all year. The anger soon turned into terror however as she saw the twelve year old Harry fight an enormous 100 foot basilisk with nothing but a phoenix, the Sorting Hat, and the Sword of Gryffindor. He could mentally hear as well as see her physical wince as she saw him stab the beast through the roof of its mouth, but also be stabbed in the arm by one of the basilisk's fangs. She watched as Harry lay dying, and his last thought was to try to save his best mates sister. Almost like a movie, she willed Harry accomplish his goal as he reached a shaking hand toward the diary of Tom Riddle, and pulling it toward himself, stabbed the book with the basilisk fang. Fleur physically wept as she saw Harry fall the floor, his energy gone, before Fawkes flew over, and landing on Harry's arm, cried onto the wound. The wound healed, and the poison was neutralized. Fleur saw Harry help Ginny to the entrance to the chamber, then saw the aftermath of his adventure, and her pride swelled again as she saw Gryffindor once again win the House Cup, saw Hermione run into the Great Hall, completely recovered from her petrification.

As Fleur went over Harry's memories from his third year, she became increasingly uneasy with the risks that Harry was taking to find his parents' supposed betrayer. She was especially uneasy about the fact that Dumbledore had allowed the entire Azkaban garrison of _DEMENTORS_ to be stationed inside the school grounds; an uneasiness that was increased after she saw and felt how much the Dementors affected the thirteen year old Harry. Sooner than Harry thought, he was reliving the night he met his godfather, the exposure of the real traitor, Peter Pettigrew, and Sirius's flight from the ministry's grip on the back of a stolen hippogriff.

Of course Fleur did not really need to see Harry's memories from his fourth year; after all, she was competing in the very same tournament. However, she wanted to know how the events of the year looked like from Harry's perspective. As they finally came to Harry's first memory of Fleur, she was surprised that Harry held a rather low opinion of her. '_Was I really that stuck up?_' Fleur asked mortified at how she laughed childishly at Dumbledore's attempt to simply welcome the guests to Hogwarts.

'_Well, you certainly weren't the most courteous person in the castle._' Harry responded.

Fleur basically skipped over the first task, as she had gone before harry, so had already seen what he did, paid some but not much attention during his recollection of the second task, as she was there for most of it, and the parts she had not known about Gabrielle had filled her in on that same night. However, Fleur was greatly interested on his perspective regarding the third task. She watched as Harry entered the maze and was surprised that Harry did not encounter any dark creatures or traps for nearly ten minutes. '_What gives, I was fighting things almost the instant I entered the maze, yet you got virtually nothing._"

"_You'll see._" Harry thought resignedly.

Fleur watched, shocked as she saw Harry defend Cedric against Krum, gasped as they both took the cup at the same time and were both transported to a graveyard in Little Hangleton. Fleur nearly screamed as she saw Cedric get murdered before Harry's very eyes, murdered by the same little man that she had seen in Harry's memories from his third year. She watched as Harry was tied to a tombstone, and forced to participate in a dark ritual, one that ended with the tall, thin, terrible form of Lord Voldemort rising from the steam pouring out of the cauldron. Then she watched as Voldemort summoned his Death Eaters, and then stood, frozen as the short duel between Harry and Voldemort unfolded, amazed at the bravery of her mate, who made a beeline straight for Cederic's body, and then summoned the Triwizard Cup, which portkeyed Harry and Cedric's body back to Hogwarts. She then watched as Harry was dragged back to the castle by the man who appeared to be Alastor Moody, but who was quickly shown to be Barty Crouch Jr. '_All that time, a Death Eater, masquerading as one of Dumbledore's personal friends managed to stay hidden in a castle CONTROLLED BY DUMBLEDORE! And they call him the best wizard of the age._' Harry could almost feel the rage coming off Fleur at this point.

Fleur's rage continued to build as she witnessed the summer before his first year. Watched as he was ignored almost entirely by his friends at the request of Dumbledore, watched as he was forced to perform illegal magic to cast the patronus charm to save Dudley's and his souls, seethed as Harry was unjustly tried in front of the entire Wizengamot, and rejoiced upon seeing his acquittal. Her anger began to build again as she witnessed the farce that was Harry's fifth year, how Umbridge was slowly taking over the school faster and meeting less resistance then Nazi Germany faced in capturing Europe. '_She tortured you with a blood quill? I will burn her to ash, and then scatter the ashes to the four winds so she may never be at peace._' Fleur threatened. Fleur's anxiety began to rise again as she saw the teachers of Hogwarts get sacked one by one, saw Harry dream of Sirius locked in the Department of Mysteries, saw Harry escape Umbridge, and with his friends, make his way to the Ministry to try to save Harry's godfather. Fleur was terrified as she watched her mate lead five other students in a running battle around the Department of Mysteries against nearly a dozen Death Eaters, gasped as she watched the Death Eaters whittle their number from six to five, to four, to two with Harry, and an inept Neville being the sole defenders standing. Then suddenly the Order of the Phoenix arrived, and Fleur wept with joy as she saw the combatants draw the Death Eaters' attention away from her mate, but then was shucked and stricken as she saw from Harry's perspective as his godfather was hit by a red jet of light from his cousin Bellatrix that launched him through the air, and into the Veil of Death. Fleur cried as Harry, goaded and grieving beyond all rational thought, chased Bellatrix to the atrium of the Ministry, where they had a short duel before Voldemort and Dumbledore interceded. Fleur watched the duel between Dumbledore and Voldemort with awe, and fear, it looked as though two gods were going at it, battling each other for dominance. Fleur felt warm victory as she saw Voldemort encased in a cocoon of water, but then felt heart rending fear, and righteous anger as she saw Voldemort possess and torture her mate. '_If he were not already dead, I would burn him with passion fire very very slowly._' She watched a Dumbledore attempted to 'console' Harry and then seemingly heartlessly, drop the contents of the prophesy on Harry's lap, no training, no warning, just dropped it right on him, and she watched as Harry's spirit broke, how he was given the opportunity to stay at Hogwarts for the summer if he wanted to train. But she when she looked in the Headmaster's eyes, she knew that he would be training Harry for the slaughter, not for victory.

Coming out of the mind meld, Fleur looked into Harry's eyes and once again saw the empty, dead look she had seen there the first day he had found her in the community. Not knowing what to say, Fleur simply wrapped him in her arms and pulled Harry into her embrace as he began to sob without restraint. Only now did Fleur realize how Harry could achieve that dead look in his eyes, he had seen and done things that no one should have to experience in several life times, let alone 16 years, she thought that it was a miracle that Harry was still sane at all.

"Shhhhh." Fleur whispered, "It's all right Harry, we will get through this, I swear. We will have revenge on that man that calls himself the leader of the light, that man who has the audacity to call himself the Headmaster of such a great and historic school as Hogwarts. I swear, I will always stay by your side, and will help you defeat Dumbledore."

And with that the pair fell asleep, Fleur comforting her bond mate, and Harry swearing vengeance on all those who had hurt him.

_Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Headmaster's Office_

Dumbledore was thinking, someone, and he had a very good idea who, had managed to break into his office, and somehow managed to free the phoenix he had bound to the office. Not only that, but a few hours later, they had somehow managed to sever the connection between himself and the immortal turkey. This left Dumbledore with a problem, for although Wizards lived longer than muggles because of their magic sustaining them, they were still human, and the human body and soul was not built to last longer than 150 years at most. At nearly 170 years old, Dumbledore should have left for the next great adventure long ago; however, events had led him to the conclusion that to leave the world in its current state would be disastrous. He had managed to convince himself that he continued surviving, not for this own sake, but for the greater good of everyone. The phoenix had been part of his plan to make sure that he lived long enough to accomplish all his goals, however, the one he had enslaved was now gone beyond his reach. Fortunately, Dumbledore had a backup plan, one he wished he did not have to enact, but it was his only recourse. Dumbledore made a rough guestimate in his head of about how many people would be in attendance at the opening feast tomorrow, and after running the estimates through a complicated arithmancy equation, decided there would be more than enough people on hand to satisfy his goals. '_Good thing the Welcoming Feast is tomorrow. Better go down to the kitchens and give the house elves their special instructions._'

And with that, the Headmaster walked out of his office toward the kitchens, several faint clinks emanating from under his robes, as if there were several glass phials concealed in them.

**Ahhhhh! Another cliff hanger! Bet you can't guess what Dumbledore's next plan for immortality is, it's something mentioned quite often in Fanfiction, but never done on this kind of scale. Tune in next time to see the veela conference, and the revelation of Dumbledore's insidious scheme. (Insert maniacal laugh)**

**Translation**

svp m'aiment-love me


	10. Meetings, both pure and Nefarious

**Hey again, hope you're all waiting with baited breath to discover the verdict of the veela council, and to see what Dumbledore's backup plan is, because these are the events covered in this chapter. ;) As to those of you worried that Hermione, Ron, Ginny, and have fallen down a plot hole and disappeared, don't worry that is addressed as well.**

**On a more personal note, I thank all those who took time and space in their reviews last chapter to offer condolences about the death of my dog, there was never a more loyal pet to be found, and this chapter goes out in memory of him.**

**Disclaimer: Let me check, nope still don't own the HP Universe, would be nice to find a time machine, or a time turner somewhere, that way I can go back in time with manuscript copies of HP and claim them as my own before JKR can even think about writing them, but as time travel is impossible according to the laws of physics as we know them, I'm out of luck, damn.**

**Recap of chapter 9:**

_And with that, the Headmaster walked out of his office toward the kitchens, several faint clinks emanating from under his robes, as if there were several glass phials concealed in them._

**Cah11 humbly presents**

**Salvation**

**Chapter10: Meetings, both Pure and Nefarious**

Harry pulled nervously at the neck of the expensive dress robes he was wearing. He was about to meet the most powerful veela in the world and he was definitely more nervous than Fleur seemed to think he should be. He had tried to explain his fears to his bond mate all the way to the wooded site the enclave would be held at. He had tried to explain to her about the number of allures he would be assaulted with before she quashed that excuse saying that he had the most powerful allure of anyone alive. He next tried to escape saying that they would fry him to a crisp using passion fire before she reminded him that as he was fully bonded to a phoenix, the flames would not hurt him. Have all his excuses shot down with no effort on Fleur's part, Harry had finally broken down and admitted that he was terrified and had no idea what he was going to say to the clan chieftains when he spoke to them. After all how do you explain to others that you accidentally became the king of the veela, accidentally found your queen and forever bond-mate by being enthralled and kidnapped by a group of teenage veela who happened to live in the same veela community as said bond-mate, and accidentally bonded a phoenix to himself all in the course of two weeks.

Fleur took pity on Harry after sharing his feelings in the now fully developed bond and pulled him into a particularly wooded part of the forest for a quick pep up session to boost his confidence and moral. After they returned, Harry had a goofy grin on his face, and Fleur had a satisfied smile indicating what she had done to 'boost his confidence.'

As the time for the meeting to begin drew nearer, Harry found himself growing nervous again, not nearly to the same level as before mind you, but a little stage fright was a healthy thing, right? Soon Harry found himself traveling with the entire Delacour family to a large clearing in the forest which was populated with many logs and stumps that were obviously meant to be sat on. As the family plus Harry took a seat, a rich feminine voice called out for quiet over an invisible voice projecting system and Harry could only assume that the veela talking was using a sonorous charm. As soon as everyone was quiet, the voice began to read what sounded like family names from a long list in front of her, as she did the family whose name she called stood from their seats for a moment so she could mark them present before sitting down again. When the Delacour's name was called, Harry hesitated to get up, but Fleur grabbed him by his upper arm and pulled him up straight with the rest of the family whispering, "Harry, you are as much a part of the Delacour family as I am, never doubt that." Harry grinned in response and hugged his mate happily until they were forced to release each other so they could resume their seats.

"We are here today for our biannual discussion of the status of veela around the world, and to take action if we deem it necessary. I have also been informed by Mrs. Delacour that there is an urgent matter that needs to be brought to our attention immediately. So without further ado I call the Matriarch of the Delacour Family forward to present their matter before us." The veela then sat down as Mrs. Delacour stood and moved to the podium at the front. Once she was standing before the mass of people who were in attendance she cleared her throat and spoke in a crisp clear voice insuring she would be heard by all.

"Chieftains, fellow veela, I am both honored and saddened to stand before you this day, the tidings I bring are both happy and troubling." Here Mrs. Delacour paused for dramatic effect before continuing on. "We have information of recent developments that have taken place in England over the past two weeks. For those of you who do not know, You Know Who has been killed by one Harry James Potter, The Boy Who Lived." The roar of approval after this statement was such that Harry almost believed that the sonorous charm must extend beyond the podium into the crowd, but he really couldn't see the point of that and put it down to the number of people in attendance. "There was however one complication, Dumbledore it seems is not as light side oriented as we had first believed. Mere minutes after Harry defeated You Know Who; Dumbledore showed up and immediately tried to kill Harry." The silence from the crowd was tangible as the 5,000 plus veela tried to comprehend the possibility that Dumbledore was not as benign as they had thought.

One female veela toward the front stood up and scowling up at Mrs. Delacour asked, "How did you come by this information? Veela are not allowed in England, and I doubt you have informants in a country that you visited but once for an interschool competition."

"We have received our information form a very credible source. In fact he was there the night of Dumbledore's betrayal."

"Who?" the veela asked, her eyes narrowing.

Mrs. Delacour gestured for Harry to stand then said "Harry Potter."

At first no one reacted, then a split second latter every veela was standing, shouting at Mrs. Delacour, hurling abuse at her for bringing what they thought was a non-veela to the enclave.

Raising her wand, Mrs. Delacour used several blasting hexes to regain quiet before saying, "Yes, yes we know Harry was not a veela, but things have changed, including Harry. It appears that Harry had more veela blood in him than anyone thought. In fact he apparently comes from a line of veela older and nobler than any of ours."

"Whose line does Harry belong to?" Asked another family matriarch looking interested.

"It would appear that Harry is descended from veela nobility of the highest order. That's right." Mrs. Delacour said pleasantly as several eyebrows raised to their owner's hairlines. "Harry is directly descended from the last veela king and queen."

Once again this revelation produced shocked silence as everyone turned to look at the boy who was still standing at the back, turning red in the face all the while. Then chaos erupted again as every veela not connected to the Delacours began to yell obscenities at Mrs. Delacour and Harry. Several cursed Mrs. Delacour for being hoodwinked by a 16 year old boy, while others shouted at Harry for having the audacity to proclaim himself king of the veela. Harry's temper began to rise as the veela hurled insults and obscenities at him and the only mother figure he had ever known. Pointing at him and demanding his immediate obliviation and deportation to Britain, it wasn't until one veela suggested extermination by passion fire that Harry finally lost control of his anger. Shaking with the effort of containing himself he didn't notice that red flames had surrounded his form and that he had sprouted feathers from his arms to his head and down his legs until he noticed that that all shouting had ceased and everyone was merely staring at him in dumbfounded astonishment. Looking at himself he had to admit that he looked rather intimidating.

Sensing Harry's anger, Fawkes flamed into the meeting area and settled on Harry's shoulder causing the crowd of veela to gasp and change demeanors from murderous to what approached awe.

"Harry, please come forward." Mrs. Delacour asked.

Harry made his way to the front still in his combat form; the aura he projected around himself caused other veela to automatically move out of his way clearing a path to the front. Once he got there, he relaxed his mind and he transformed back to his more human looking form, and Mrs. Delacour pulled Harry up to the podium whispering so only he could hear. "They're all yours My King." Then giving Harry an encouraging smile, Mrs. Delacour stepped down from the podium.

So, there Harry stood. Looking out over the heads of thousands of veela waiting with baited breath for him to speak, to tell them how he had made the transformation from The Boy Who Lived, to veela royalty. Of course it was just Harry's luck that his mind was completely blank, he had no idea what to say.

"Harry, try opening your mouth." Mrs. Delacour said in a very loud whisper that carried to the front row of seats. Those that heard what Mrs. Delacour had said chuckled amused at Harry's now bright red face.

"Right, sorry." Harry began rather lamely. "Right, so you want to know how I became like I am. Well it's not a pleasant story, and it's quite long-."

"Please Your Majesty, we have all day." Mrs. Delacour assured him.

"Alright then, I don't know how many of you will believe me, but here is my story."

Over the next hour, Harry told the entire enclave of his adventure to where he stood, leaving out few details, (he didn't think the whole veela nation had to know every detail of his love life with Fleur, but did inform them that he had sealed the bond with her.) Once his tail was told he fell silent, waiting for their reaction. A few seconds passed as everyone came to grips with the hardships that the boy had faced. Some even were compelled to disbelieve the story, but everyone could see the phoenix still perched on Harry's shoulder, and the ring like mark that shown black against the pale skin of Fleur's finger. Slowly most people accepted that the tale he had just told was too fantastic to have been made up and so it must be true.

A single solitary matriarch stood and walked to the front with everyone's eyes on her. Once she was standing in front of the podium she spoke, "Harry James Potter, I am Jennesa Belmont, one of the most powerful full blooded veelas in the world, and the most powerful tested veela present. I challenge you to a battle of wills, if you defeat me, then I will willingly bow to you as our king, if however you lose, I ask that you leave us at once, never to return to the veela nation. This is a test." The last was shouted over the cries of many who thought she was being disrespectful. "A test to make sure he has the power to lead us, if he is not impervious to the allure of other veela, then he can be manipulated, and I personally don't want a puppet on the throne." Turning to Harry she raised an eye brow and said. "Well what do you say Potter? Concede defeat and leave in shame? Or challenge me for what you think is your rightful place?"

Of course Jennesa wasn't really giving Harry much of a choice. He had to accept the challenge, or he was basically admitting to cowardice.

"I accept your challenge Jennesa Belmont, when and where do you want the challenge to take place?"

"Right here, right now, I want to have a final decision quickly so we can get on with the other business that needs to be attended to." With that the matriarch began to walk away from Harry who stepped down from the podium and lined up opposite Madam Belmont who had stopped ten feet away and then composed herself, getting ready for the challenge.

Mrs. Delacour walked up behind Harry and said, "Remember, you are king, which means that **you** have the most powerful allure here. Now go out there and win, remember to think happy thoughts."

Harry nodded and then turned to face Jennesa. Not knowing when the competition was actually supposed to start, Harry was afraid to release his allure for fear of being called a cheater and therefore forced to forfeit.

Fleur was nervous, she had been sure that Harry would be challenged by someone in the audience, but had not expected to be challenged by one of the most powerful full-blooded veela in the world. Feeling Harry's anxiety, Fleur gathered up all her courage and belief in him and forced it down the bond to her mate. Harry turned and smiled at her in thanks before resuming his position, staring at Jennesa.

An impromptu referee was found in the audience and walked forward to cast the wards necessary to block Harry's and Jennesa's allures from affecting the crowd. As soon as the wards were up, the referee call out to Harry and Jennesa separately to make sure they were ready. Both answered in the affirmative. Then the referee shouted, "You may begin."

Harry gasped, startled as Jennesa's allure crashed into him. It would be so easy to just let go into the allures embrace he thought, Jennesa was already very beautiful despite her fifty odd years, and the allure made her seem just that much more appealing. Then a voice that sounded like Fleur's spoke in his head. '_Harry what are you doing? You are letting her win! Think of happy thoughts and release your allure to fight her off!__**'**_ The voice helped him come back to himself and he found that somehow he had ended up nearly four feet closer to Jennesa then he had started. Harry flushed, embarrassed that he had nearly lost the challenge without even putting up a fight. Fleur had explained that in a Battle of Wills a loser was declared when one person forfeited, or one person gave into their desire enough to come within touching distance of their opponent.

Quickly thinking of his feelings for Fleur, Harry immersed himself in the memories of what they had done the night he had fully bonded with her. He thought of the family that he now had with the Delacours, and the thought that soon he would be able to try and discover if his friends had really betrayed him or not. Many would question if the last thought was really happy, but Harry thought that he would be able to explain to them Dumbledore's manipulations and had to believe that they would believe them. He had always counted Ron and Hermione as his older brother and sister, and now with his marriage to Fleur, he considered Ginny a younger sister.

Jennesa had been grinning at the beginning of the challenge as Harry's face became amorous and dreamlike. Slowly, his eyes on her the whole time, he began to walk toward her as if he were hypnotized, which in a way he was she thought amusedly. Then, only six feet from her, something changed in his eyes, and the dreamy look on his face disappeared to be replaced by a blush as deep as any she had seen. Then slowly his face filled with determination as his allure came out in full force, and it was at that moment that Jennesa knew she was in trouble. She had had her allure going full power to try to end the challenge quickly, but she was being quickly overwhelmed by an allure so strong that it seemed to cut straight through hers and took her breath away. A slight breeze seemed to blow though the boy's hair, and his eyes seemed to draw her in. she felt herself drowning in his vivid green eyes and without thinking about it, her body began to move toward him. Her mind was beyond rational thought now, all she could do was move forward, trying to get as close to those eyes as she could so she could become lost in them completely. As soon as she could she moved into touching distance and reached out and took his hand. The instant her hand touched his, the challenge ended and the referee hastily manipulated the shield so it was between Harry and Jennesa, cutting off the allure that had so completely enthralled one of the most powerful matriarchs in the world.

"The winner of the Battle of Wills is Harry James Potter." The referee announced. "Any who would contest the outcome, let your complaint be heard now." No one spoke.

"Well done Mr. Potter." Jennesa complimented, "You have indeed proved yourself worthy in my eyes to be the Monarch of our nation." Raising her voice for all those present to hear she then announced, "I Jennesa Belmont hereby swear mine and my family's undying loyalty to one Harry James Potter in accordance with him being the ruling monarch of the veela. So mote be it."

Upon Harry's acceptance of the oath, Jennesa fell to her knees at Harry's feet and bowed her head in supplication. One by one the other family matriarchs present swore their family's loyalty to Harry and then the family fell to the knees bowing until Harry found himself standing alone in a sea of kneeling bodies and bowed heads.

Thus began the reign of Harry James Potter the first, first king of the veela in nearly five hundred years.

_Hogwarts school train, second carriage down, fourth compartment, 2 hours before the train's arrival at Hogwarts._

Hermione was not feeling well; she hadn't been since Harry had disappeared. It had started as a feeling in the back of her mind that something was off about Dumbledore's accusations against Harry. There was no way the Harry she knew would kill and torture others merely for the pleasure of it. In fact the only time Harry had been cruel at all was when he hit Bellatrix with the Cruciatous curse, and let's face it the bitch really deserved far worse than that.

She had talked to Ron about her feelings, but he had brushed them off saying that if Harry had really gone dark as Dumbledore said, then he was not the innocent boy they had known. Rather he would be a dark, twisted, insane version of the Boy-Who-Lived, or as some were calling him now, the Boy-Who-Fell. By the time term had rolled around she was actually beginning to feel physically ill at the thought of what Dumbledore had said about Harry, but the thing that made her feel even worse was the memory of how she had spoken out against her friend in The Prophet. It had gotten to the point that she was starting to avoid spicy foods, and other things that were hard on the stomach for fear of ulcers.

What Hermione did not know was that due to their magic, every witch and wizard had what the muggles commonly called, the 'sixth sense' which if they listened to it, helped them uncover blatant dishonesty, and steered them clear of betrayers. Unfortunately, many pure-blooded wizards that had been raised in Wizarding society grew up around so much dishonesty and betrayal that their children grew to ignore the 'sixth sense'. At the same time, muggleborns and half-bloods rarely knew of their 'sixth sense' because of overexposure to science fiction and other genres of movies that used such 'sixth senses' and portrayed them as fantastic abilities that no one in real life could possibly possess.

So Hermione passed off warning feels she was getting as coming down with stomach flu and not a sign that every moment she grew closer and closer to someone who wished to perform an act that would fit in perfectly with one of her more vivid nightmares.

_Hogwarts, Headmaster's office, one hour before the train's arrival_

Dumbledore sat in his office contemplating the events that were about to unfold. Truth be told, he had really not wanted to have to take this step, if something went wrong then his plans would be set back several decades, if not indefinitely. If only Potter had not stolen his phoenix and pushed him to take these measures. The headmaster stood with a groan, already his magical reserves were waning, he needed a fresh injection, and soon, or his body would start to deteriorate at an exponentially increasing rate. Every movement was difficult now as he forced 150 year old limbs that felt every year they had been around to carry him from his office to the Great Hall. He had to start there now, if he didn't he would miss the beginning of the opening feast, and that was not an appointment he could miss.

_Entrance Hall, Hogwarts, just before the opening feast._

Ron and Hermione walked into the castle and began to make their way to the Great Hall for the feast. The closer Hermione got though, the more ill she felt, finally succumbing to the pains in her stomach, Hermione told Ron. "Go on ahead without me; I'm just going to nip upstairs to the medical ward to get something for this stomach ache."

"Alright." Ron answered looking concerned. "See you at the feast then." And with that he walked into the Great Hall.

Hermione quickly ran up the stairs, arriving at the door to the ward right as Madam Pomfrey was leaving it.

"Mrs. Granger, what are you doing here?" asked the matron looking concerned.

"Excuse me Madam Pomfrey, but do you have a potion on hand to help me with this stomach ache?" Hermione begged. "It's been hurting all day and I can't get rid of it."

"Well dear, I do believe we have a potion on hand that just might do the trick, let me take a stroll through my office and find it for you."

A few minutes later, the concerned matron returned with a vial full of a light blue potion and handing it to Hermione said, "There you go dear, that should get rid of the pain as well as heal whatever is bothering you. It will take a few minutes to work so I want you to lay down for the next ten minutes, after which you may get up and go back down to the feast. There should be no ill effects however, if you feel sick again tomorrow come and find me and I will do a more thorough scan to find out specifically what is wrong."

"Thanks Madam Pomfrey." Hermione responded, fervently uncorking the potion and downing it in one go. Then she lay down on the nearest bed, casting a spell to let her know when ten minutes had passed. Knowing that Hermione was a model student and that there was nothing else she could do presently, Madam Pomfrey decided to head down to the feast leaving Hermione in the Hospital Wing. She set her own spell to alert her after fifteen minutes, telling herself that if Hermione had not come down after that time she would come back up to check on her.

_Great Hall, just after the sorting ceremony._

Dumbledore was secretly nervous, the stunt he was about to pull was unprecedented, in fact no one had ever attempted to try what he was about to on such a large scale before. Luckily for him, most of the 'participants' would be underdeveloped children who could be easily overcome. No, his real concern was the teaching staff; they would not be as easily over tricked, but it had to be done, the greater good demanded it. After the last first year student got their seat to and the sorting hat was taken away, Dumbledore stood and raised his arms in his customary gesture as if to embrace the whole hall, and said, "I have only one word of advice. Eat."

Many students cried out in pleasure as the tables in the hall filled with food and drink. Everyone quickly dug in, with the notable exception of the Headmaster, who took some food and merely played with it on his plate. Minerva noticed and asked, "What's wrong Albus?"

Dumbledore was annoyed that he was distracted from his mental countdown on what was about to happen, but fixing a rueful smile on his face answered his deputy headmistress. "Oh, just thinking about Harry, and about how he should be here with us now, enjoying the opening feast of his seventh and final year here. I don't know Minerva, first Tom, now Harry, maybe it is time for me to retire after this year."

Minerva was shocked by her old friend's thoughts, and let him know herself. "Albus, you have done nothing wrong, Tom and Harry both made their own decisions about their own paths, there was nothing else you could have done. You're a great Headmaster, don't let the falling of two of your formal pupils distract you from the many students that go through this school and turn into respectable, successful members of society, all under your supervision."

Dumbledore's expression brightened immediately and he said, "Thank you Minerva, I have been wondering for days if my time to leave had finally come, but thank you for settling that issue for me."

"You're welcome Albus." Minerva replied graciously, before raising her goblet to her lips and swallowing some of her wine. Not more than five seconds later, a loud crash was heard from around the hall as every living person save one suddenly passed out sound asleep onto the tables and into the food in front of them. Dumbledore inspected the hall making sure that all the students and teachers had ingested at least one mouthful of the spiked food and drink and were safely asleep. As soon as he had assured himself that every living thing other than him was trapped in the realm of Morpheus, the Headmaster rose from his seat and casting a powerful exorcism ward, forced the ghosts from the Great Hall much to their anger and confusion.

Walking to the center of the room, Dumbledore waved his wand in a complicated pattern that when finished revealed the hall to be filled with runes drawn all over the walls, the floor, and even on the ceiling. Being careful to articulate his words very carefully, Dumbledore began to speak in an old, largely forgotten language, performing a ritual of the darkest intent.

Dumbledore's plan was as simple as it was genius, he needed more magic to keep himself alive, therefore he had visited the elves in the kitchens handing them several potion phials filled with a time reactive sleeping draft, telling them to add the potions to all the food and all the drink. Once the potion had activated and everyone was asleep, Dumbledore would perform a dark ritual that would bind the souls of every witch and wizard in the room to his own, thus tying their magical cores to his as well. There were of coarse other benefits; those bound by the spell would be unquestioningly loyal to Dumbledore, doing anything he said, as well as allowing him to absorb their family lines, and thus their votes in the Wizengamot into the Dumbledore line. Seeing how every family of high standing in Britain sent their son or daughter to Hogwarts, this essentially meant that Dumbledore was absorbing every vote in the Wizengamot into his own. As soon as the ritual had been completed and Dumbledore felt the bonds settle over all the others in the hall, he became the virtual ruler of magical Britain.

Hermione was now feeling much better and made her way back down to the Great Hall. Now that the stomach pains were gone, she was feeling extremely hungry and hoped with a smirk that Ron had contained himself and left some food for her.

Walking down the main staircase to the Entrance Hall, Hermione thought it was odd that all the ghosts in the school seemed to be gathered around the doors to the Great Hall, not thinking anything of it, Hermione walked through the crowd (literally) and tried to open the big double doors. To her puzzlement they refused to open.

"Why can't I get in?" Hermione asked Sir Nikolas who was floating nearby.

"No idea." Sir Nikolas stated, sounding more than a bit perturbed. "The feast was progressing as it always does, and then all of a sudden everyone in the hall stopped and then seemed to fall unconscious. Well, everyone except Dumbledore that is." The ghost amended.

The uneasy feeling that Hermione had had before came back full force and she suddenly had a burning desire to be anywhere but the inside castle. Moving away from the double doors, Hermione made her way across the Entrance Hall to the big main doors which she unlatched and pulled open. Immediately the doors to the Great Hall banged open and Dumbledore strode out to stare at Hermione, the rage in his eyes caused by her evading his trap. Lifting his wand Dumbledore said "Mrs. Granger, kindly follow me back into the hall so you may be properly bound to me."

"What?" Hermione asked in blank shock. "What do you mean so I can be bound to you?"

"It's very simple." Dumbledore explained in a condescending voice. "I perform a ritual that binds your soul to mine to increase my already considerable power, and then you act like a perfect little drone and do you school work and act like your normal self, almost like you aren't bound at all. The only difference being that you will be slightly less powerful due to me drawing on an inconsequential amount of your magic to fuel my body and any spells I have to cast that day."

Hermione stumbled back at the Headmaster's admonishing that he was essentially trying to enslave her, a concept that she had despised since she had learned of the enslavement of house elves. She understood now that the elves had to be bonded to a house to stay alive and sane, but that didn't mean she had to like it. The concept of enslaving another human being filled her with revulsion, and Hermione immediately took another step back as Dumbledore took a step forward.

"No Headmaster, I will not hand myself over to be unresistingly turned into a slave for your benefit. I would sooner die than surrender my humanity to another."

"Then I'm sorry it must be this way." The Dumbledore whispered. Pointing a finger at Hermione he yelled out to the Great Hall. "Capture her if you can, kill her if she makes it to the gates, no one must know of my power yet." With that chaos reigned as every student and teacher in the school flooded out of the Great Hall headed for the one muggleborn witch who had dared to stand against Dumbledore. Paling, said witch immediately turned and sprinted full out toward the gates, dodging left and right to avoid stunners, nonlethal hexes and jinxes, as well as a few debilitating and borderline dark curses that she thought had been thrown by Dumbledore himself. At first she thought that she would have no chance to reach the gate, but she quickly realized that even though there were many more of them then her, she was in much better physical shape than most of her peers, and could sprint further than any of them with the exception of those that were on the quidditch teams. As she neared the main gates, she prayed that she would be lucky for a few more seconds and could make her escape. She didn't know where she was going to go; only that anywhere was better than here.

And so as she made it past the wards she immediately began to turn on the spot, and did something she was warned to never, ever do under any circumstances by her apparition instructor at the Ministry the day she got her license. Hermione Granger prepared herself to make a blind apparition jump, fully aware that she could easily land herself anywhere on the globe, from the bottom of the deepest trench to the top of the highest mountain. As she was finishing the turn into darkness, she felt a stabbing pain in her side, but ignored it, any distractions now could cause her to lose her focus and she wouldn't apparate. She knew she had made it when she was surrounded by the crushing darkness of apparition. Sighing in relief to herself, she tried to get a general feel for which way her magic was taking her, only knowing that it was leading her south by southeast, directly toward France. Suddenly the bands around her chest exploded and Hermione found herself standing in a crowd of tents, all of whom were inhabited by what appeared to be veela, as several were standing around, looking surprised and alarmed at her sudden appearance.

As she began to get feeling back in her body, she noticed that the stabbing pain in her side was starting to get worse. Looking down, Hermione discovered that someone, she guessed Dumbledore had managed to land one solitary hit on her, but she thought the one curse that connected might have been all that was necessary. Her side had a large puncture wound comparable in size to those made by .50 caliber rounds, which was now bleeding quite copiously. As her knees buckled and she began to fall, Hermione thought for one fleeting instant before darkness claimed her that she had seen her friend Harry running toward her, a look of terror on his face.

**Sorry to all you Hermione lovers out there, but I needed a legitimate reason for Harry to want to return to Britain for retribution beyond the thought of personal revenge. The Harry in my story just has such a low self-esteem that he feels it's not worth fighting a war over his personal status in Britain. However, now a friend is involved, and as we all know, Harry would go to hell and back for his friends. For those of you who claim that Harry doesn't know that Hermione is a friend again, if you saw a former friend dying of extreme blood loss, I hope you would help them regardless of what arguments you had in the past, if not, then you guys are real cold sons of bitches.**

**Alright, chapter 10 done please review but don't flame, flames will be put where they belong, in the trash, and their writers will be banned.**


	11. Rise of a Monarchy, Fall of a Ministry

**Disclaimer: I don't own it, not even most of it, just the story line really…**

**Recap of chapter 10:**

_As she began to get feeling back in her body, she noticed that the stabbing pain in her side was starting to get worse. Looking down, Hermione discovered that someone, she guessed Dumbledore had managed to land one solitary hit on her, but she thought the one curse that connected might have been all that was necessary. Her side had a large puncture wound comparable in size to those made by .50 caliber rounds, which was now bleeding quite copiously. As her knees buckled and she began to fall, Hermione thought for one fleeting instant before darkness claimed her that she had seen her friend Harry running toward her, a look of terror on his face._

**Cah11 humbly presents**

**Salvation**

**Chapter11: Rise of a Monarchy, Fall of a Ministry**

After all the veela matriarchs had pledged their family's support to Harry, everyone had sat back down and the current report on the veela nations was read. The report was not hopeful. Continent wide, there were only three hundred and fifteen thousand four hundred and thirty seven individuals with any veela power at all, of those only a fifth were considered to be average power, and only a fifteenth were considered to be high power veela. All the other individuals were considered to have little to no power in veela magic. After the report was read, people began to drift back to the city of tents to talk amongst themselves about the report and the latest development, namely the crowning of their new king, which would take place the next day.

Harry and the Delacours had been heading back to their tents, occasionally stopping along the way to talk with, and introduce Harry to his new subjects. Many were very polite and even seemed hopeful that Harry would be able to lead them into a better future. All the family matriarchs were pleasant and courteous to both Harry and Fleur, but occasionally Harry or Fleur would notice certain individuals, mainly young female veela staring at Fleur with dislike, or in extreme cases outright hostility.

'_Love, I think that your assent to the thrown has been well received universally, but it would appear that some are not as fond of me.'_

'_Yes, I noticed that as well'_ Harry thought back _'Still, you are my bond mate, and they can do nothing to change that, even if I could, I would not pick any of these other individuals over you.'_

'_Thank you dear that makes me feel better.' _Fleur admitted. She was still shocked sometimes by the depth of Harry's devotion to her, and at times could not understand how Harry could not desire one of the other veela here at the enclave, even if they were bonded.

'_Honey, you are under the delusion that you do not think you are a worthy wife for me, when it is me that is not a worthy husband for you. Just accept the fact that I want no one but you, just as I have accepted that you want no one but me.'_

Fleur swore that she almost melted inside at Harry's declaration and decided that Harry would definitely be receiving a very special reward once they got back to their tent, a reward that would necessitate a strong silencing and locking ward.

As they finally reached their tent there was a sudden crack that split the air causing Harry to fall to the ground in an instant, thinking of gunfire and assassination, while every other veela nearby began looking in the same direction for the source of the commotion. What the veela saw left them stunned. A young woman, a witch by the looks of it, had apparated straight into the enclave, which should have been impossible. However the next thing they noticed about the new arrival was that there seemed to be a copious amount of blood gushing from a rather large puncture wound in her thigh. Not more than a second passed since she had appeared before her face turned bone white and she began to collapse to the ground. Many people began to run toward her, eager to help, the one in the lead however was non-other than Harry Potter, who had recognized his former friend, and despite her earlier betrayal, he still thought that it was possible that she had not known of Dumbledore's manipulations and had acted without complete information.

Harry fell to his knees before Hermione as he reached her. Grabbing his wand, he pointed it at the wound in her thigh and began to chant a healing charm. After a few moments however, Harry cursed loudly and said, "I can't heal this with magic, there's too much dark magic surrounding the wound. She'll need to be sown up the muggle way."

Many of the surrounding veela paled at the thought that the spell cast was so dark that not even their king could overcome its power. It proved that whoever had done this was very powerful indeed, and that they weren't afraid to kill for their own gain.

Harry had to think fast, she wouldn't make it if he tried to take her to a medical tent as she was. He needed to control the bleeding **now**. Realizing what he could do, Harry made a prayer that Hermione would forgive him, and then partially transformed. Once his extremities were sufficiently aflame, he pressed his hands against her wound, wincing as the skin sizzled and parts of it turned black and charred. As soon as the bleeding had slowed to a trickle, Harry had picked Hermione's limp body and ran to the nearest medical tent. Hermione had been removed from his arms the moment he had arrived, and been taken into a partitioned section where Harry could hear the shouts of veela healers as they worked on her, desperately trying to close the wound completely. Feeling helpless, Harry sunk to the ground and buried his face in his hands. How could he have forgotten his friends in England? True they had betrayed him, but they were reacting that way after years of pro-Dumbledore propaganda and six more years of his tutelage. Harry had hoped that Hermione, being a muggleborn, would not be as swayed by Dumbledore's reputation. He should have known that her devotion to authority would supersede any friendships she may have made. If Hermione died, it would be his fault for leaving his friend behind. She would become another name added to his list of people that he loved that had died because of his inaction, first Cedric, then Sirius, and now possibly Hermione.

Fleur watched her bond mate sadly, and kept a close watch on his emotions through the bond. She was alarmed as his thoughts became closer and closer to self-loathing for his supposed abandonment of his friends. Finally she decided that she had to intervene before Harry did something extremely rash that ended in both their deaths.

Harry's thought became blacker and blacker, If Hermione died, Harry didn't think he would be able to live with himself. He decided that if she died, he would immediately apparate to Hogwarts alone and implode his core, killing himself and Dumbledore instantly. That way he would take that dark man with him when his life ended.

As Harry continued to brood, Fleur walked up behind him and sat down, wrapping her arms around his body as she did so. The moment she touched him, he burst into tears and turned in her embrace so he was crying on her shoulder. Fleur merely wrapped Harry tighter in her hug and said, "She is strong Harry, she'll pull through."

"But wh-what if she d-doesn't?" Harry asked "Wh-what if she dies, sh-she was one of my fi-first friends."

"Oh Harry, everyone dies." Fleur said sadly, "It does not matter when we die, or how we die, but what we have the chance to do before death. That is what truly matters. If she dies now, then she will have died for a worthy cause, she would have died warning us about how dark Dumbledore has really gone." After that Fleur and Harry sat in silence, waiting for the veela healers to come out and inform them if they had been successful at saving Hermione or not.

Nearly an hour later, the head healer walked out of the tent with a very grave expression on her face and said, "It is done."

Knowing that this could mean any number of things Harry of course asked, "Does she live?" his voice was sad, but with a tinge of hope because the healer had not come right out and pronounced her dead.

The grave look on the healers face was instantly replaced by a warm smile and she said, "Yes my Lord, she lives. It was a close thing, and she was touch and go for a while there, but you did an excellent job getting her here alive. It was a good thing you kept your head and cauterized the wound before bringing her here, or she would have died while you were taking her from where she apparated in, to here.

Harry beamed with happiness, and Fleur's arms relaxed around him as she took comfort in the knowledge that her mate no longer felt as responsible for Hermione's injuries. She knew that if Hermione had died, Harry would have blamed himself entirely for her death.

"When can we go in and see her?" Harry asked.

"She is recovering right now, but she should be awake in a few hours if you wish to speak with her." The healer replied before heading back into the medical tent.

Harry sighed and turning in Fleur's arms, embraced her back saying, "Thank you love, thank you for being here for me when I needed you. It means a lot."

"Oh Harry, you must understand that no matter what happens, I will always be here for you. Nothing will ever be able to keep us apart ever again."

"I know love, it's just, whenever I find someone who loves me, it seems that they get taken away before I get the chance to really spend much time with them. I only got a year and a half with my parents before Voldemort killed them, then Remus entered my life in third year, but had to leave, and he was never really much of a father figure to me. Then I met Sirius, and he became my father. But then he got killed at the Ministry…" At the recitation of everything he had lost, Harry's voice broke and he wept once again into Fleur's shoulder. Fleur, knowing there wasn't really anything she could do to dampen his fear merely held him tighter in her arms and whispered soothing words in his ear about how she would never leave him alone again.

Eventually Harry's emotions burned themselves out leaving him emotionally drained, which when combined with the energy he had expended at the duel of wills and the power he had used to save Hermione, and the emotional shock of seeing one of his first friends mortally wounded, caused him to feel so exhausted that he felt as if he could sleep for a week.

Sensing the extent of Harry's exhaustion through the bond, Fleur stood herself and Harry up, and keeping him in a tight embrace, began to half lead half carry him back to their families tents. Once there, she was immediately accosted by her family who all wanted to know the same question. Who was the witch that Harry carried away, and was she still alive?

Speaking in a whisper so as not to disturb Harry, who seemed to be dozing on her shoulder, Fleur answered "The witch was a friend of Harry's from Hogwarts; she had a huge hole, most likely inflicted by a dark variant of the piercing hex, blown into her hip, and yes, she did survive, now if you'll excuse us, Harry has had a very traumatic day and I fear he has slipped into emotional shock, I'm taking him to bed until evening, and we don't want any one disturbing us unless it is of dire consequence, and I mean that, if we are interrupted for anything less than our race being on the verge of war with Britain, I will personally burn the messenger to bones before he can utter so much as a syllable.

Mr. Delacour was shocked at first about Fleur's declaration, but after taking a closer look at Harry, he found that maybe his daughter was right to be so harsh about this, the boy and young monarch looked completely knackered.

Whispering in Harry's ear, Fleur led him into the back of the magically enlarged tent, where their quarters were located. As soon as they had entered the bed room, Fleur's hands moved to his robe, which she pulled off of him and threw on the ground, and then she unbuttoned and pushed his pants to the floor, taking his hands as she did so and gently pulled him forward, causing him to step out of the legs of his pants. Then moving her hands to his shirt, she began to lift it off of him, asking him softly to raise his arms for her, which he did, allowing her to get his shirt off leaving him in his boxers. Moving over to the bed, Fleur sat him down, then began to remover he own cloths until she was down to her bra and knickers.

Harry was tired, so tired that he didn't even notice his wife stripping in front of him until she was pushing him down onto the bed and lying down in front of him. Harry then saw Fleur draw the blanket up over them and felt her wrap him in her arms as he quickly fell asleep, utterly and completely spent.

_Ministry of Magic, London_

David Greengrass was annoyed. He had come to the Ministry of Magic to fill out paper work for the upcoming Wizengamot session and had arrived to find that the door to his office would not respond to his magical signature. His irritation had become so great that he pulled his wand out and began to fire blasting hexes at the door, trying to blow it in before remembering that the doors were charmed to be indestructible so that they could not be broken into by those who would want to steal classified documents.

So here he was, standing outside his office wondering how he was going to get in, when he heard someone else walking down the hall. Turning, David saw Amos Diggory walking down the hall toward him. Wondering if Amos would be able to get into his office, David waited until Amos walked up to his door and saw him turn the handle and walk in. once he had entered, David walked to the door to Amos' office and knocked. The door opened after a few moments and Amos peered out at David with a suspicious look on his face and asked, "Yes? What do you need Lord Greengrass?"

"Well, I was just wondering if you had any trouble getting into your office, because it would appear that I cannot enter mine for some reason."

"Amos' face turned from guarded to perplexed and said, "No, I got the door open alright, just like every other day, are you sure that you are trying the right door, and that someone is not just pranking you by switching the name plates?"

"I'm sure; I've only been coming to the same office at least once a week for the last 25 years of my life." David said rather impatiently.

"Well let's see you try again." Amos said.

Stepping out into the hall, they walked back down to David's door. Once there David reached out his hand and tried to turn the handle to open the door, but just as before, the door remained firmly locked.

"That is very odd." Amos said, his face looking confused, "Maybe you should go see magical maintenance, have them reset the wards on your room."

"Yea I'll do that, can you check your inbox for me first, and just to make sure there is not any important court wide memos going around that I might miss?"

"Sure." Amos replied. The pair once again moved back into Amos's office and Amos reached over into his inbox and pulled a small stack of notices to himself. Flipping through them, he saw a letter from Amelia, one from Mrs. Longbottom, one from Mr. Croaker, and most unexpectedly a notice of an emergency Wizengamot Session called by majority vote for later that afternoon.

"I didn't know there was a vote to hold an emergence meeting, did you?" Amos asked knowing that the Greengrass', being a neutral family, had ties to both light and dark families, and thus were one of the first to know about anything either side did.

David sounded surprised and confused when he said, "No, I was not aware of a vote, or even a meeting called to request an emergency meeting. This is all very odd, and in my experience two seemingly innocent odd occurrences are not that innocent after all."

David and Amos immediately moved to the chamber where the Wizengamot meetings were held where they split to move to their respective doors. Amos made it through the door to his box seat fine, but when David tried to go through the door to his seat, he found that like his office door, it refused to accept his magical signature. Sighing, David made his way to the visitor box and was surprised when he opened the door to find that the visitor box, which was usually almost completely empty, was jam packed now; in fact it was so full that it was practically standing room only. David was also surprised to find several familiar faces in the box with him, including Lady Longbottom, Amelia Bones, Mr. Abbot, and several other Wizengamot members. Walking up to his longtime friend Ken Davis, David asked "Couldn't get into your box either?"

Ken looked surprised to see David there and said "No, everyone here that I've talked to has said that the door to their box, and the door to their office won't respond to their magical signature, it's almost as if someone has somehow stolen nine tenths of the Wizengamot seats and combined them under one.

David's face paled at the idea that someone had subverted the system and managed to take control of the court by combining the seats all under one.

Suddenly, the door at the door at the far end of the court room opened and Dumbledore walking and took his place at the seat of the Chief Warlock. After arranging some papers in front of him, Dumbledore reached over for a gavel and banged it twice on the podium in front of him calling for order so the meeting could start. As soon as it had quieted down, Dumbledore stood and said, "I call to order the 50th emergency session of the wizengamot, the last one having been held in July 1942, is there anyone with any business to discuss before the reason for this emergency meeting is made public?" No one answered.

"Very well, this meeting was called by majority vote to discuss changes here in Wizarding Britain which shall be effective immediately. First, the reason that many of you can't enter your wizengamot offices and boxes, this is because I have taken control of the wizengamot."

Dumbledore's explanation was interrupted by a hundred voices all shouting at once, asking how or why he had done this.

"SILENCE!" And indeed silence was forced upon them by the headmaster's magic. "This has occurred for the greater good, too long have those in power held thing stagnant where they are, maintaining the status quo. Now, as for changes, one, the wizengamot is hereby dissolved, those who approve say aye. AYE!" everyone was shocked that as Dumbledore responded, over a hundred tally lights lite up, much more than the majority needed. "Those who oppose say nay."

A few voices rang out showing their courageous, but futile desire to hold their positions.

"The vote stands at 178 votes aye, 13 votes nay, and 3 non-votes, motion passes, the Wizengamot is hereby disbanded, now, as written in the warlock's charter of 1386, a new form of government must be chosen. Votes for those forms of government, and its leader are decided by those who held seats on the Wizengamot. As such, I have majority vote. I propose a Dictatorship as the new form of government, with me as its leader. All those that agree say aye, aye. All opposed say nay."

Once again, a few voices rose in futile rebellion against the inevitable.

"The vote stands as 178 votes aye, 10 votes nay, and 6 non-votes, the new Dictatorship of Wizarding Britain is now the Government with me, Albus Percival Wolfric Brian Dumbledore as the reigning dictator." Many voices, including David's rose in protest to the decision. "SILENCE!" Dumbledore yelled, his magic silencing them once again. "I thank all of you for your years of service on the wizengamot, but you are no longer necessary. Good day." And with that, everyone in the chamber and the visitors section were ejected by the ancient magic of the hall. Everyone appeared outside the ministry, where many were now trying to get back into the building; however they were all repelled by ancient wards that had not been operational for centuries, but made the building more of a fortress than a government center.

David watched dispassionately as several people he knew foolishly threw themselves against the wards or fired hexes trying to wear them down. But David knew their actions would lead to nothing but collateral damage; there was enough energy in these wards to repel a goblin army, let alone 200 disorganized wizards with no military, or curse breaking experience.

'This is bad, really bad, Dumbledore has managed to steal the entire government right out from under us, and the real question is, how did he achieve this?' David shivered thinking that however he did it, he was unlikely to like the answer.

Dumbledore smiled. Now that he was the magical dictator, we could craft the laws as he saw fit, and because magic confirmed his rule, magic itself would enforce his decrees. This would make his job much easier.

_Veela Enclave, France, The day of the coronation._

Once again, Harry was nervous. He was about to be crowned ruler of the whole veela race. He had, of course, known this for weeks intellectually, but now the moment was here. He was scared out of his mind. It had stated early that morning, after waking up from what he could only consider an emotional breakdown of the most embarrassing sort.

_Flashback_

He had awoken and spent the next 10 minutes simply staring at Fleur in his arms, thinking about how much he loved her, when it hit him that he would be responsible for her safety in the coming conflict. Then he had had the slightly disconcerting realization that although magic may have picked him to be king of the veela, if he was not a good ruler, he would not have the backing of his subjects, and as the kings of the Renaissance learned, kingship was an empty title and no protection if you didn't have the support of the people.

This of course got him thinking about the fact the he would now be responsible for the continued safety of an entire race of beings, and this thought filled him with dread. War was a bloody and terrible thing, and if Dumbledore was as serious as he appeared to be, then the situation would most definitely deteriorate to the point of open warfare. Later that morning Fleur and Harry had finally gotten up and gone out of their room to get breakfast. Once out of their room, they noticed that Mrs. Delacour was standing by the door of the tent talking to a very official looking veela. They appeared to be having a heated discussion about one thing or another, in fact it was so heated that Mrs. Delacour appeared to be right on the brink of transforming.

"Mama, what is wrong?" Fleur asked looking concerned.

Mrs. Delacour jumped and whipped around, catching sight of Harry and Fleur. Immediately she relaxed and said, "Nothing, now, this is a messenger from the medical tent, he claims to have a warning from Harry's friend that must be delivered immediately. As per your instructions, I was about to tell him to come back later, but since you are both up, I suppose he can deliver his message.

"Thank you." The messenger said, sounding rather impatient. "Your friend Miss Granger has quite a tale to tell, she claims that Dumbledore has bound the entire living population of Hogwarts to himself, which means that he has taken control of their minds, magic and souls. She apparently escaped by coincidence, and somehow managed to perform a blind apparition jump right on top of our camp. If I may be so bold your highness, I believe she is lying about the whole thing, I think she is part of a plot to have you assassinated."

"That is enough!" Harry yelled, "Your last statement was too bold! Hermione would never try to get me killed, even when she disbelieved my innocence of being a dark wizard; she called for me to get help, not for my death."

The messenger cowered at Harry's anger and slowly began to back out of the tent with a short bow saying, "Forgive me your highness, it was not my place." Before turning and running full sprint back to the medical tent.

As soon as the messenger was out of sight Harry seemed to wilt and leaned against Fleur for support. Fleur managed to catch him and hold onto him as Harry felt the guilt over what the headmaster had done overwhelm him. He had known that Dumbledore would go to great lengths to accomplish his goals, but he had not thought that that he would go as far as enslaving practically the entire preteen to young adult population of magical Britain.

_End Flashback_

So now here he was standing at the end of a long path that led to two thrones of wood and gold. Harry was dressed in a long robe of red and gold that was so elegant and delicate looking that he had been afraid to put it on when he had been first handed it. Every veela at the enclave was present, along with Hermione, who had healed enough over the night to be allowed to attend the coronation as long as she was closely watched by a healer.

Soon a regal sounding melody was struck up and Harry knew this was his queue to start walking, Fleur, who was standing beside him dressed in a similar manner as himself, followed at his side, minutes later, though it seemed hours to Harry, they reached the twin thrones and they turned to face the audience. The music stopped and everything was silent for an instant before Mr. Delacour marched toward them, two crowns upon the pillow in his hands. One crown was tall, and very much masculine. It was made of solid gold, with a huge sapphire in the center that had somehow, harry supposed by magic, been cut to the shape of a phoenix that appeared to be swooping down on prey, with its wings blown back and claws extended. The other crown was much smaller and more feminine than the first. It too was solid gold, but the phoenix shaped sapphire was much more docile. It was a phoenix that appeared to be basking in a hot burning flame.

Once Mr. Delacour had arrived in front of the pair, he had given them a small smile, tears of joy in his eyes, before beginning the ceremony.

"We are gathered here today to recognize the crowning of our new ruler, our new king. He is Harry James Potter, son of James and Lily Potter, Who were betrayed by a friend and slain by their mortal enemy. The enemy was defeated by Harry at the tender age of one, and thus began Harry life. Harry's childhood was not easy; he was not treated with the care and affection that every child should be shown during their life. I will not go into details as that would take far too long; needless to say, Harry arrived in the Wizarding world with no knowledge of his past, his heritage, or his powers."

At this, many veela looked confused, and several angry at the veiled insinuations that someone had even **dared** abused the heir to thrown. Mr. Delacour smiled internally, knowing that he had just effectively crushed any internal debate amongst veela that Harry was not their king. It was known that veela who were abused often had their developing powers turned inward causing them to go into mad berserker rages that were only stopped by lethal force. The fact that Harry help onto his sanity for so long, went a long way toward solidifying their case against anyone who might disagree with their story.

"His years at Hogwarts were no easier, every year he was put in unimaginable danger, every year he was tested, and every year he emerged triumphant. Again, we won't go into details, but know that every year at Hogwarts except one, Harry came face to face with the dark wizard known as Voldemort and survived. In most cases even outright beating him in what should have been very one sided fights.

Then Harry grew stronger, he learned the things he needed to know to defeat the one who killed his parents. Finally the day came where he challenged the dark lord, and defeated him in one on one combat. The method was unorthodox, but no less effective. That is why I believe he deserves to be king, not for his fame, or even because of his heritage, because of his deeds. I am also proud of our new queen, who is none other than my older daughter Fleur. She managed to be Harry's rock during a difficult time in his life. With Dumbledore's betrayal, and his friends deserting him, Harry didn't know who else to turn to. So he came to my daughter seeking asylum, and found much more than he bargained for." The last part was said with a larger smile on his face.

"I am glad to call him my son, and glad he is our new ruler. With Harry leading us, you can be assured that he will not do things merely because they benefit him, or someone he knows. He will do them because it is the right thing to do. That is why today should be a day to remember. Not merely because we have crowned a new king and queen, but because they will be a good king and queen." And with that Mr. Delacour took the queen's crown from the pillow and moving in front of Fleur, waited for her to kneel before him. Once she had, he placed the crown upon her head, and then taking her by her hands, stood her up and then hugged her tightly. Next he moved in front of Harry and repeated the same he did for Fleur except after crowning him he held out his hand, and shook Harrys, putting as much respect and feeling as he could into the gesture. As the evening sun began to sink below the horizon, a flash of fire was seen above the couple, and Fawkes appeared, singing a song of hope, and courage for all those to hear. Though Hermione seemed discomforted by the song, she had not yet repaid her ills to the new king, and her soul was still not completely pure. It was as she saw Harry and Fleur looking at each other, and Fawkes with such love that she decided that she would repay her debt and repent of her sins against Harry, no matter how long it took. Then maybe, she could move on and would find **her **love. Her salvation.

**Ok, first things first, truly, I am sorry that this update is so long in coming, real life decided that it would be a good time to start kicking me in the ass and stealing all my free time. Between end of term exams, seasonal work at Target (never working in retail again), and the holidays, I haven't had much time to write. And though those aren't really good excuses, they're all I have.**

**I know this will shock many, but I have actually decided to end the story with this chapter, and make the whole war between Harry and Dumbledore a completely different story. Firstly because I'm afraid the story will get too long otherwise, I know I have a problem finishing stories that are too long (Searching for the power, and Harry and Kiki: Tales of the Boy Necromancer come to mind) I just have a problem with keeping my attention on one story for anything over 50 chapters (sometimes not even that long.) Secondly, I am an evil person, therefore, I'M LEAVING YOU ON A CLIFFHANGER AGAIN! (Insert maniacal laugh of your choice.) Don't worry, I'll begin work on the sequel soon, let it be known that the sequel will be much more action packed than this story was, along with being gorier, more aghasty, and will contain character death. There will still be a romance element to it with the main pairing being Harry/Fleur. However, there will be a Hermione/OC side romance (Sorry people hoping for a Harry/Hermione/Fleur pairing, in this story, Fleur is soul bound to Harry, and if Hermione tried to join it would end badly, I'm not saying I won't write that pairing in the future, just not for this story.) In that vein the next story will be mostly action and less storyline, that's what this story was all about, setting up the sequel. Thanks for reading, and look out for the next story in this series that should be coming soon!**


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